To Charlotte, With Love
by AudacityofHuge
Summary: Charlotte Turner was fifteen years old when she mysteriously vanished after school one afternoon. Ten years later her case has gone cold. But when a dedicated journalist creates an investigative podcast about her disappearance, the Boston Police Department assigns Detective Jane Rizzoli and her partners to check out the promising new lead the program has generated. **RIZZLES**
1. PROLOGUE: S1E1 - Charlotte

**Author's Note: **Hello readers. Here I am in a new fandom. It's odd for me, but the fanfic itch appeared and I decided to scratch.

I'm posting this against my better judgement. I would prefer to have more of it written before I started posting, but I can't resist. I really like how this story is turning out and I'm excited to share it.

So let's get started, shall we?

* * *

_I often wonder if the purveyors of murder realize just how much pain they cause. This may sound like an easy question with an obvious answer, but hear me out. First of all, you have a victim—a life ended far too soon. I think it's safe to assume that murderers know they have harmed the people they murder. And then there's the family and friends of the victim. Again, I think a large number of murderers know they've hurt these people as well. _

_But what about the family doctor who has years of medical records for a patient who will never need to visit them again? What about the beautician who cut the victim's hair every month for the last five years? What about the school registrar who has to strike a name from their attendance logs because the dead can't attend chemistry class? _

_And what about the police who investigate the murder? The police who have to live with the fact that they couldn't protect the victim, and, in the event of a cold case like Charlotte's, are unable to even offer the family a resolution about what happened?_

_No, somehow I doubt most murderers think of those people at all._

-An excerpt from _To Charlotte, With Love_ – S1E1: "Charlotte"

* * *

Jane threw open the door to Maura's house and waltzed right in as if she owned the place. Almost instantaneously, she was irritated. There was a distinct lack of the scent of coffee in the air. "Maura?" she called as she walked further in to the house. Her best friend was nowhere to be seen and there was no response to her call, so she continued on towards Maura's bedroom and tried again. "Maur?"

As she passed the guest room, she heard Maura reply: "In here." Stopping dead in her tracks and leaning backwards to look through the doorway she'd just passed, Jane spotted Maura standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom of the guest room. Backtracking, Jane went in the room. Before she could say anything, Maura said, "Oh shoot, I forgot to make coffee. I'm sorry."

And just like that, the irritation was gone. "Don't worry about it. What are you doing in here?"

"The sink in my bathroom is leaking so I had to shut the water line."

"You want me to take a look at it?" offered Jane, leaning against the doorway to the bathroom and watching Maura finish her makeup.

"That'd be great, thanks," said Maura with a winning smile. "I looked for myself already, but I couldn't ascertain the root of the problem. Admittedly I didn't do a thorough assessment because it was threatening the punctuality of my morning routine, but it makes more sense for you to look at it anyway. I have no doubt you'll be able to figure it out faster than I would."

"Wow," said Jane, raising her eyebrows. "You saying I'm better at fixing pipes than you? I don't know if I should be flattered or insulted."

Maura laughed, meeting Jane's eyes in the reflection of her mirror. "I assure you, I intended it to be complimentary."

A warm and fuzzy feeling settled in Jane's stomach and she returned Maura's smile. "In that case, thank you." She pushed away from the door jam and began walking backwards towards the kitchen. "The sink's gonna have to wait though. I need to go engage in mortal combat with your coffee machine." She pounded her right fist against her open left palm in a threatening gesture. "Two will enter, but only one will leave. And if you're looking to place a bet, just know that I carry a freakin' gun." The sound of Maura's laughter followed her out to the hallway and a grin split Jane's face despite her caffeine deprivation. She loved to make Maura laugh.

In the kitchen Jane hesitantly approached the complicated machine that stood between Jane and her ability to be a functioning human being. She pushed up her sleeves and placed her hands flat on the countertop on either side of the machine, glaring at it as though it was a suspect she was trying to coax in to making a confession. "Okay, coffee machine," she muttered. "I don't like you, and you don't like me. But we're both property of Dr. Maura Isles and that means we need to develop a semi-functional working relationship. So let's do this together, shall we?"

It didn't occur to her until several minutes later that she'd just described herself as Maura's property. She wasn't sure where it had come from. It had just sort of slipped out. But the words had the ringing taste of truth, and years of experience had taught her it was pointless to overthink or question all the things she said and did where Maura was concerned.

With a hiss and a shudder, the coffee machine released a stream of hot liquid in to the mug that sat ready to catch it—Maura's favorite mug. As Jane stood there grinning at it triumphantly, the sound of clapping came from the direction of the bedrooms. She turned to see Maura looking genuinely proud. "Great job, Jane! I knew you could do it."

"Thank you, thank you," replied Jane, giving an exaggerated, fancy bow. Then she straightened and handed Maura her steaming mug of fresh coffee. "Will you do the honors? Tell me how it is, and be honest."

"When am I ever not honest?" Maura raised the cup to her lips and took a dainty sip, but said nothing afterwards.

Rocking back and forth nervously, Jane prodded: "Well?"

For reply, Maura spit the coffee back in to the mug.

"Oh my god," said Jane, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "Really, Maura? It's so bad you couldn't even swallow it?"

Maura burst in to laughter. "I'm kidding, Jane. It's perfect."

"You sure?" Jane eyed her skeptically.

"I'm sure. Taste for yourself."

It turned out to be true, and Jane leaned against the counter sipping her coffee and watching as Maura rifled through the morning paper. Jane realized she spent a lot of time watching Maura go about her business. She liked the way Maura was always so focused on whatever she was doing, even something as banal as reading the paper. But she liked it much more when that focus was trained on her. Therefore, she did the natural thing and set about annoying Maura's attention away from the newspaper. She reached across the kitchen island and began rummaging clumsily through the corners of the pages, making it difficult for Maura to read.

"Stop that," said Maura irritably, slapping Jane's hand away. "What section do you want?"

"Sports, please," said Jane, the very picture of innocence.

"You don't have to assault my newspaper. You can use your words like a normal adult." Maura fished the sports section out and separated it from the rest of the newspaper. "Here."

"Thanks." Jane took it but made no move to read it. "Anything good in there?"

"Climate scientists are saying that if we continue emitting carbon dioxide at our current rate then we'll have fewer than ten years before we reach the point of no return in climate change," replied Maura, her eyes still scanning the article. "The human race is headed for a mass extinction event."

"I think we have drastically different definitions of 'good,'" deadpanned Jane.

"We should really stop eating meat, Jane," continued Maura as though she hadn't heard her. "Did you know that factory farming animals for human consumption is the single greatest contributor of greenhouse gasses?"

Jane couldn't help but feel charmed at the implication that any dietary change on Maura's part would constitute one on Jane's part as well. And she had to admit, it probably would. "Let's do it, then," said Jane.

That got Maura's attention. "Really?"

"Sure," said Jane, shrugging. "If you think it will help prevent the mass extinction of the human race."

"I think _you _refraining from meat would most certainly help," said Maura, a glint of mischief in her eyes. "At least 5% of the carbine dioxide in our atmosphere comes from all your meat lover's pizzas."

"Rude, Maur. So rude. Fine, I won't order them anymore. But I draw the line at putting mushrooms on the pizza. That's just sick and wrong. I'm only interested in eating mushrooms if they're gonna make me grow twice as big like Mario."

Maura squinted at her, an expression that Jane knew meant she was trying to understand her reference. "The little Italian plumber from the video games?" she ventured.

"Yes!" exclaimed Jane, pumping her fist in the air victoriously. "Well done, Dr. Isles."

"Thank you, thank you," said Maura, repeating the same fancy bow that Jane had done earlier, except she remained seated on her stool. "Although I haven't the foggiest idea what that little plumber has to do with mushrooms."

Sighing and shaking her head, Jane said, "It's not right, all the stuff you missed out on in your childhood." She watched as Maura finished her coffee and then took the empty mug from her and brought both it and her own to the sink and began washing them with dish soap and hot water.

Maura put her chin in her hand and watched affectionately. It had taken the better part of two years to make Jane do that unprompted. At first Jane would simply leave her mug in the sink, then as time went on she started to fill it with water to "let it soak," then she had graduated to actively rinsing, and finally to the more meticulous cleaning she was doing now. And what was more, she hadn't even complained about the task in well over a year. In fact, if the little smile on Jane's face was any indication, she was _happy_ to do it. "You're smiling while doing dishes, Jane. You'd better hope your mother doesn't walk in right now or you'll be forever regulated to the role of dish-washer at Sunday dinner."

"Your mouth to God's ears," replied Jane drolly. "I only like washing _your_ dishes."

There was surely a medical explanation for the feeling of butterflies made out of sunshine tickling Maura's heart inside her chest, but she found she couldn't think of it. "Technically they're all my dishes. This is my house."

"Yeah, you keep trying to believe that and let me know how that works out for ya."

Twenty minutes later they pulled up to the precinct and headed towards the elevators. As usual, Jane waited with Maura until a down elevator arrived. They were discussing lunch plans when a voice from one of the up elevators that Jane skipped to wait with Maura said: "Rizzoli! My office, now." Cavanaugh didn't look upset, so Jane understood "now" to mean "when you're done with Maura."

"Sounds like a game is afoot," said Maura with an air of excitement.

"It does indeed," agreed Jane. A downward bound elevator arrived and she waved at Maura as she got on and hit the button. "I'll text you once I've heard the rules."

"Please do." Then the door closed and Maura was gone.

Jane stared at the metallic door for a few seconds, missing Maura already and feeling ridiculous about it. Shaking her head, she pushed the up button at last.

Frost and Korsak were already waiting in Cavanaugh's office. "Morning, gentleman," she said as she dropped down in an empty chair. "What do we got?"

"Any of you guys heard of this podcast called _To Charlotte, With Love_?" asked Cavanaugh.

Jane and Korsak shook their heads, but Frost said: "Yeah. Cold case podcast about the disappearance of Charlotte Turner."

"Why does that name sound so familiar?" mused Jane.

Cavanaugh handed a file to the detectives and they put their heads together to look through it. "Charlotte Turner, age 15 at the time of her disappearance," he said. "She vanished after softball practice one afternoon ten years ago and nobody's seen her since. Her body has never been found, and no suspects have ever been arrested in connection with her disappearance. There was a huge manhunt after she vanished. The whole city was looking for her."

That was why Jane remembered the name. She'd still been in vice at the time, but she remembered hearing about the case on the news, on the streets, and in the precinct. Everyone had been talking about it. Until they weren't. Eventually the fervor had died down, as these things tended to do, and the case had since gone cold.

"If we don't have a body then how do we know it's a murder?" asked Jane absently as she looked at the picture of the pretty young blonde girl in the file. It always made her heart ache when the victims were young. What if this girl was going to be the first female President of the United States? Or the first person to walk on Mars? There was so much wasted potential.

"I don't have to tell you three the likelihood of this being a homicide case," said Cavanaugh grimly. "I hope I'm wrong about it, but we all know the odds when a kid goes missing."

"What's the podcast got to do with it?" said Frost, taking the picture from Jane to study it.

"The creators of the podcast have been looking in to the case. Apparently it's all the rage right now for journalists to pick a cold case and run their own investigations. Some of them do good work and get great results," said Cavanaugh. "Apparently this is one of them, because we were contacted by the producers and they think they know where the body is."

Korsak looked up from his own review of the photograph and raised his eyebrows. "You're kidding. A couple of nerdy journalists solved a cold case?"

"I wouldn't say they've solved it, but we've looked at their findings and we think they're solid. So we want you to check it out." He paused and cleared his throat. "And, uh, we want you to bring the podcasters along with you."

"What?" said Jane, her jaw dropping. "You want the nerds to tag along?"

"The brass thinks it will be good publicity. It looks good for the department to be supportive of solving crimes in any way possible, and that includes independent sleuths."

"But, uh…" Frost glanced nervously at Jane. "You really want _us_ on this one? Talking to the reporters? They're going to be recording right? So we'll probably end up in the podcast."

"Yes," said Cavanaugh. "I imagine you will."

Jane said, "I think what Frost means is: You seriously want someone following _me_ around and recording everything I say?"

"Yeah, I do." Cavanaugh's tone indicated complete finality, and the three detectives knew there would be no more discussion on the topic of the assignment of the case. "This afternoon the podcasters will meet you at the vic's high school to check out the location where they think the body is. You're to be hospitable, alright? I don't want to listen to the show later and hear you calling anyone a nerd." He pointed accusatorily at Jane, who waved her hand dismissively.

"I'll be civil," she assured him. In truth Jane had grown to have a hearty appreciation for nerds thanks to a certain doctor she was quite fond of. Speaking of... "Should we bring Maura?"

"Call her in if you find the body," answered Cavanaugh. "No point interrupting her work for a wild goose chase."

At lunch time, Jane poked her head in to Maura's office and waved the bag of food from the deli across the street she'd brought. "I hope you're hungry, because I've got to go on a little field trip in an hour so this is probably my only window of opportunity for lunch."

"Starving," Maura replied, closing her laptop. Jane came in to the office, shutting the door behind her. She sat on the opposite side of Maura's desk and distributed the food, and Maura was shocked to see what Jane had brought. "Salads. You brought us salads?"

Shrugging, Jane was a little bashful as she said, "We're not eating meat, right? Isn't that the deal?"

For a long moment, Maura just sat there smiling at her. Then she chuckled and started to dig in to her salad. "You've been so accommodating recently. I'm honestly not sure what to make of it."

"Maybe I decided that I'd rather have you looking like this," she waved her biodegradable plastic fork in front of Maura's face as though circling it on a sheet of paper, "than being annoyed with me all the time."

"Well, I've noticed, and it's appreciated." She reached over and squeezed Jane's hand where it lay on the desk, lightly rubbing the back of her palm with her thumb.

The contact was electric. The hairs on the back of Jane's neck stood up. _That's interesting_, she thought, blinking at Maura. _And nice. Interesting and nice_. Experimentally, she turned her hand and intertwined her fingers with Maura's. "Perfect fit," she said without thinking.

"I've often thought so, yes," agreed Maura breathlessly, her heart hammering in her ears. She squeezed Jane's hand again and then reluctantly pulled her hand away to eat. As she chewed on her kale she catalogued the moment in her memory and filed it away for careful examination later. With that finished, she felt capable of conversation again. "So tell me about this assignment you were supposed to text me about earlier," she teased.

"Sorry about that," said Jane. "I had a witness interview and it went longer than I was expecting."

Waving her apology away, Maura said, "No problem. I've got four bodies right now so I wasn't exactly sitting by the phone for you." This was a slight misrepresentation of the truth. In fact she had been diligently keeping an eye on her phone while performing her autopsies, but she had been standing the whole time. A twinkle of mirth in Jane's eye let Maura know she was not believed, but she was relieved when Jane let it drop instead of teasing. Yet another example of Jane's growing softness towards Maura.

"You ever heard of this podcast _To Charlotte, With Love_?" Jane asked.

"Yes!" said Maura enthusiastically, her eyes lighting up with delight. "It's wonderful! You'd be shocked at what some of these amateur podcasters can discover about cold cases. Some of them immerse themselves in the victim's lives for months until they can get the people close to the case to open up to them. I think in some cold cases that might be the only way to solve the crime because of the degradation of evidence and memory over time. In that way podcasters have a huge advantage over the authorities—they simply have more time to devote to the subject."

"Yeah, well, Cavanaugh seems to agree, because he said the producers of this podcast think they know where the girl's body is hidden."

Maura gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth. "No!"

"Yes," replied Jane. "He wants Frost and me to go check it out."

"Can I come?" asked Maura eagerly, and Jane grinned.

"Look at you," she said, amused. "You're so excited."

"Honestly, Jane, you should listen to the podcast. You would like it. The host is a fantastic journalist. She asks the perfect questions, and she really gets people to trust her. That's how she must have generated whatever lead she's got. It's very emotional at times, hearing from people who knew the victim so well and are suffering because they don't know what's happened to her."

Leaning back in her chair, Jane imagined herself in to the situation in the manner of a good detective. She pictured what it would feel like to have a loved one go missing, and then tried to imagine how that feeling might change and evolve over the course of a decade. Eventually the grief, though still present, might fade and turn in to something else—anger, and frustration, and above all a painful hope that your loved one might be found alive. In that hope there would be the sting of uncertainty, the inability to say a clean goodbye, and the shame that would follow at wishing for that goodbye to be finished. "Yeah," she said slowly as she thought through this.

Maura could practically see the wheels turning in Jane's head as her eyes grew unfocused and distant, no doubt considering the implications of the case. Unbidden, the thought came to Maura that Jane was easily the most beautiful person Maura had ever known, both inside and out. No one could possibly question Jane's motivations in her police work. She did it because it was her right and her privilege to bring some modicum of peace to the living left behind in the wake of unspeakable horrors, just as Maura considered it her right and her privilege to speak for the dead who could no longer speak for themselves. They were two sides to the same coin, both equally important to the overall function and utility of the currency.

"I hope these podcasters are right," Jane commented finally. "I hope we find the girl. She needs our help. Wherever she is, I think she's waited long enough."

"Me too, Jane."

After they were finished, Jane rose and began clearing away their trash, and Maura walked her to the door. "You'll call me if you find her?" she asked.

"You bet." Unexpectedly, Jane reached out and pulled Maura in to a loose, one-armed hug. It lasted only a second, and then she was striding off down the hallway, her steps jaunty and cheerful.

Maura walked on shaky legs over to her couch and collapsed on to it ungracefully, her whole body tingling. Something was definitely happening here, and she felt warm excitement and glee bubbling in her stomach. There had always been lines drawn in the sand between Maura and Jane, and as the years passed they had been gradually eroded by the winds and tides. Maura had always hoped that one day they would be completely erased, and now it seemed to finally be happening.

Resisting the urge to dance around her office, she set her shoulders and returned her focus to the four dead people in the conjoining room. As soon as she left her office a lab tech approached her with some test results, and just like that she was swept back up in to the familiar rhythm of her day.


	2. S2E1 - The Detectives

**Author's Notes:** I realized there's something I forgot to address, which is that I decided to include Frost in this fic. I'm not too hung up about exactly where in the timeline of the show this story would fall. It's more about capturing the rhythm and flavor of the characters than it is about the actual context of the show, if that makes any sense. That's why I put Frost in here, because I loved him dearly and I miss him. And since this is my imagination, I decided to resurrect him.

That's all. Happy reading!

* * *

_Henry and I worked day and night on this investigation for the better part of a year, and we generated quality leads and evidence, as you will hear about in this season. We made a significant impact on the case, and we're proud of what we've done._

_But I gotta tell ya, we're pathetic compared to the three detectives that the BPD assigned to Charlotte's case. We were given unprecedented access to their investigation, and you'll get to hear much of that in the coming episodes. But let me introduce you to the players._

_First up is Sargent Detective Vince Korsak. He's been with the force for over 30 years, and he's a wealth of experience and know-how that makes him an essential and valuable team leader. He's also literally the sweetest man I've ever met. I'm serious. Check out our website; I posted a video of him playing with his new litter of puppies that is so cute you'll vomit._

_Next we have Detective Barry Frost, the newest and youngest detective in Boston Homicide. But he's not green by any stretch of the imagination. He's sharp and observant, funny and smart, and devastatingly handsome—although I may be a little biased about that. He could also give Korsak a run for his money for sweetness. But again, biased. He's strong and brave, and endlessly loyal to his partner: Detective Jane Rizzoli._

_That's right, people. This is not a drill. We got Rizzoli. _

_Any true crime addict has heard her name. If you're having a hard time remembering, maybe this will help: Charles Hoyt. Yeah. She's the woman who locked up the infamous serial killer Charles Hoyt._

_I'm not going to say anything else about her, though. I want you to hear it for yourself._

_And just _wait_ until you meet her girlfriend: Dr. Maura freakin' Isles, the Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts._

_Stick around, guys. It's gonna be a great season._

-An excerpt from _To Charlotte, With Love – _S2E1 "The Detectives"

* * *

Winters and summers were equally unforgiving in Boston, and this year was no exception. "I can't with this heat," grumbled Jane, fiddling with the air conditioner as she drove. "Frost, make it _frosty_ in here, will ya?"

"You got it, partner," said Frost, and two seconds later the air coming out of the car was nothing short of frigid.

"What the… How the hell did you do that? Show me."

"How about we focus on the case huh?" suggested Frost, waving the folder he'd taken from Cavanaugh in the air.

Jane snorted. "Young detectives, always trying kiss some brass. Alright, then, let's hear it."

"Charlotte Turner, daughter of Charles and Stephanie Turner, born in Philadelphia. The family moved to Beacon Hill a year before Charlotte disappeared."

"Do the parents live anywhere near Maura?"

"Yes, actually," said Frost. "They're divorced now, but her mother lives just a few streets over from Dr. Isles, it looks like. The father's got an apartment on the other end of the district."

"So they're well-to-do. They got any other kids?"

"None. It was pretty clear after Charlotte vanished that they were headed for divorce."

This did not surprise Jane. The Turners weren't the first couple to fall apart after losing a child to violent crime. Very few murders resulted in only one victim. "Amicable?"

"No," answered Frost. "Sally Stark talked to both of them at length, and they gave candid insight in to what happened between them. It wasn't pretty. Never got violent, but it was ugly."

"Who's Sally Stark?"

"The podcast host."

Outside their windows, the houses they passed gradually became larger and spaced farther apart as they moved towards the wealthier part of the city. Some of these homes even had lawns, a true sign of an owner who belonged to a higher socio-economic status. The shift was familiar and comforting to Jane, although it hadn't always been that way for her. For the majority of her life she'd envied and resented people who could afford to live in a place like this. She'd looked down on them, believing that none of them had ever had to struggle or work for anything the way her own family did.

Now, this area of the city was intrinsically linked in her mind to Maura, and Maura absolutely deserved everything she had. For all the good she did for this city, the least the city could do for her is a home with a yard in Beacon Hill. Of course Jane wasn't deluded enough to believe that everyone who lived here was as pure a soul as Maura, but it helped prevent her from automatically assuming the worst of anyone who had money.

"Have you actually listened to this podcast?" Jane asked.

"Yeah, I listened every week while it was airing," said Frost enthusiastically. "It's really good. It makes you feel feelings in your heart."

"_Feel feelings in your heart_?" repeated Jane flatly. "Really?"

"Hey, don't knock it till you try it, partner. I love true crime podcasts, and _To Charlotte, With Love_ is one of the best. I bet it'll win a Peabody this year. They released the last episode of season one last month, but there's been no word on when season two was going to start. I guess now we know why: They wanted to follow the BPD in their investigation."

"I don't get you, Frost. You don't see enough murder during regular business hours? You gotta go home and listen to people talk about other crimes, too?"

Frost shrugged. "I like it."

"What, murder?"

"The puzzle," Frost corrected. "I like trying to solve it, and so do you."

Jane smiled. "Fair enough." It was true. Jane did like to solve a case like a game of chess, using all the pieces in a winning strategy to reach a solution. She lived for that sweet moment when all the hazy bits and pieces fell in to place, illuminating the truth with blinding clarity. "Alright, so walk me through Charlotte's last day."

Pulling a page out of the file, Frost launched in to the story. "She woke up about seven AM and her father made her pancakes. Then she got on the school bus at about 8:06 AM. Nothing unusual happened that day. She was on time for all her classes. At lunch she went to visit the janitor Gary Hopkins in his office with her two best friends, identical twin brothers Rich and Robbie Dunbar, but multiple unrelated sources say they did that a lot so it wasn't unusual. After school she went to softball practice, which ended at approximately five PM. Everyone is absolutely positive she changed in the locker room after practice, and then she was seen leaving the school grounds at about 5:20. And that's the last time anyone saw her."

"Not much to go on," said Jane thoughtfully. "I'm assuming all the CCTV footage has been checked?"

"Every camera, every minute. Nothing there."

"Then maybe she never actually left the school. Did anyone check those cameras?"

"Yeah, they were all checked."

"Well, shit," said Jane, blowing air straight up her face to get that one unruly tendril away from her eyes.

Frost nodded. "Pretty much. The most plausible theory anyone's been able to come up with is that she was snatched in a blind spot somewhere and taken away in a vehicle."

"And if that's true," said Jane as she pulled in to the parking lot of John Adams High School, "there's no way we'll be able to find her. Not without checking every single car caught on CCTV that day."

"Which they did try, but unfortunately the video quality back then wasn't great and they weren't able to decipher every plate." The two of them climbed out of the car and headed towards the front of the building. Standing there waiting were two strangers carrying audio equipment, a man and a woman. "This is so cool," said Frost as they approached. "I can't believe I'm about to meet Sally Stark!"

Rolling her eyes, Jane muttered, "Turns out _you're_ the biggest nerd of all. What a twist."

"Detective Jane Rizzoli?" asked the woman in a strong, confident voice. She strode forward and offered Jane her hand. "I'm Sally Stark. It's nice to meet you."

Sally Stark's handshake was firm, and Jane liked her at once. Nothing about Sally was what Jane was expecting. Self-assuredness colored her every movement, and she met Jane's gaze evenly and easily. Though she was dressed casually and comfortably, Jane was sure Maura would approve of her outfit and general appearance. She had short, stylish red hair and wore rectangular black glasses. It wasn't hard to understand why the people in Charlotte Turner's life were willing to open up to Sally Stark. She had a respectful, gentle concentration about her. "Likewise," said Jane sincerely. "And this is my partner, Detective Barry Frost."

"It's a real pleasure, Miss Stark," said Frost with a huge grin. "I'm a big fan of your show."

"Thank you Detective," Sally said pleasantly. "We always love meeting our fans. This is my producer, Henry Simon."

Jane and Frost shook Henry's hand. Jane liked him as well. His smile was genuine and seemed to lack the kind of bravado that she was used to seeing in men. Although, admittedly, most of the men Jane knew were cops. But Henry was clearly the type of guy who didn't mind sitting back and letting his female co-worker get all the credit.

"So let's get down to business, shall we?" said Jane. "You think the body is in the school?"

Her words caused an immediate flurry of activity in the two reporters as they hurriedly turned on their audio equipment. "Just a moment, please," said Sally, pulling a microphone away from the rest of the recorder and holding it out towards Jane. Henry did the same but held his in front of Frost. "You don't mind if we record, do you?"

Eyeing the microphone dubiously, Jane grumbled, "I guess not."

"Great," said Sally briskly. "To check our audio levels, why don't you both tell us what you had for breakfast this morning? Detective Frost?"

Frost cleared his throat. "Um, I had Frosted Mini Wheats."

The answer wasn't long enough for Henry to get a good read, so he prompted: "Did you have coffee, too? How do you take it?"

"Actually I don't drink coffee first thing in the morning," said Frost, and Jane raised an eyebrow at him. "I prefer a cup of English breakfast tea, which I drink black. Then once I get in to the office I have coffee, also black with two sugars."

Satisfied, Henry nodded. "Thank you," he said.

"What about you, Detective Rizzoli?" asked Sally, fitting her headphones over her ears.

"I had coffee at home with tons of cream and sugar and then we stopped for croissants on the way in to the precinct," Jane responded.

"'We?'" prodded Sally, her eyes flashing with interest.

"Yeah, me and my friend Maura."

"Would that be Dr. Maura Isles, the chief medical examiner?"

"Yeah, but I didn't have her for breakfast so I'm not sure why you're asking about her," said Jane drolly, but there was no malice in her voice. In a way the reporter's curiosity reminded Jane of Maura. She seemed to share that same quality that made it impossible for her to refrain from asking questions, no matter how awkward or irrelevant the topic. Jane found it endearing in a weird way.

Somewhat bashfully, Sally admitted, "I'm sorry, Detective. Full disclosure: I'm a bit of a fan myself. I've followed your career for a couple of years now. You've solved some real stunners in your day. You've got the highest closing rate in the entire city. You're obviously an excellent detective. I was really excited when the BPD assigned you to Charlotte's case."

When Sally was finished speaking, Jane let the silence stretch a little longer than necessary before responding. She waved her hand as though trying to make Sally keep talking. "Is that it? You don't have anything else you want to flatter me with? You didn't even mention how tall, dark and handsome I am."

Sally laughed. "Those particular details don't really translate well in audio format."

"Well go get a damn camera, because I have it on good authority that I'm gorgeous." She smiled as she remembered Maura telling her as much as they shared a bottle of red wine in the morgue. If someone who looked like Maura thought Jane was gorgeous, then it must be true. "Have you leveled your levels? Let's get started on this case, shall we?"

"Of course," said Sally, businesslike once again. "We believe we have an idea about where Charlotte's body might be hidden."

"Inside the school?" asked Frost, squinting in the afternoon sunlight. "It's been searched pretty thoroughly."

"Multiple times," added Sally helpfully. "But the short answer is yes, we think it's here. If we can just take a look at something in there then it'll be worth giving you the long answer. We wanted to go in ourselves but the school administration won't let us inside. They say it's against school policy to allow press inside the school."

Jane blew a raspberry in irritation. "That sounds like total BS to me. They're probably worried about the publicity. Can't imagine they feel good about the idea of digging in to old wounds. But don't worry; they won't turn down the cops. We can get you inside."

Sally blinked at her. She'd never even considered that the school's administration might be lying about why she and Henry had been denied entry to the school. She'd assumed it was the truth. In that moment she understood that there was a vast difference between what she and Henry were doing with their podcast and what Detective Rizzoli did in her everyday life. Clearly, she had much to learn from this woman. She dug a small notebook out of her pocket and jotted the thought down.

"What did I say?" said Jane, nosily leaning closer to try and read what she was writing.

Laughing again, Sally showed her the notebook. "It's not a secret, I promise. We make notes while we're working so we can plan what to put in the narrative voiceover of the podcast. By the way, if there's anything you don't feel comfortable having in the show, just let us know and we'll honor that. The last thing we want is to hinder your investigation."

"Our investigation?" asked Frost.

This time it was Henry who piped up: "Of course. The investigation became yours the minute you were assigned to it. From here on out, we're observers. We'll assist you however we can, but ultimately we understand that the goal is to solve this case, and you two have a lot better chance of doing that than us."

"Alright then," said Jane, beginning to grow impatient. It was hot and she wanted to go inside the school to where there was sure to be air conditioning. "Let's go investigate, shall we?"

The four of them headed in to the blessedly temperature-controlled school, Sally and Henry dropping back to follow behind Jane and Frost. It had been a long time since Jane had been inside a high school. Some things had changed, like the fancy computers in many of the classrooms, but other things were exactly the same. The walls were still lined with lockers, there were still flyers for student elections, trash still littered the hallway, and perhaps most notably, the students were still rowdy. As they walked along towards the reception office, one male teenager wolf-whistled at Jane.

"Yo, lady, what subject you teach? Whatever it is, I want in," he catcalled.

Jane put her hands on her hips, pushing back her blazer to reveal the gun and badge clipped to her belt. "Criminal Justice 101. Keep talking and your first lesson's right now," she replied, and all the teenagers in the vicinity erupted with laughter and jeers at the student who had engaged Jane.

"That's definitely gonna end up in the show," murmured a highly amused Frost, and Jane grinned at him.

They entered the reception office and Jane approached the desk. She and Frost both flashed their badges at the secretary. "Good afternoon. I'm Detective Rizzoli, this is my partner Detective Frost. We're with Boston Homicide. We'd like to speak to whoever's in charge here," said Jane in a clipped tone that left no room for anything but obedience.

"Uhh…" stammered the secretary, already rising from her chair. "S-sure. Let me just go see if Principal Barker can see you. Have a seat."

"What's she so nervous about?" asked Sally the moment the secretary had left.

"Two badges in her office, I'd guess," ventured Jane.

"The badges or the guns?"

"Oh, the badges for sure," said Jane. "Anyone can get a gun, but not everyone gets one of these bad boys. Even innocent people get nervous around cops. Most of the time it doesn't mean anything."

"But sometimes it does," added Frost.

"Sometimes it does," agreed Jane.

"Then how can you tell the difference?" said Sally.

"We're detectives. We detect," Jane said with a shrug. "For what it's worth, I doubt that secretary murdered Charlotte Turner."

"Don't let Dr. Isles hear you say that," laughed Frost. "She'd have you opening a whole new investigation in to the poor woman."

Jane cringed. "You're right. Maybe I should have them leave that out of the podcast."

Henry and Sally were following the conversation with interest, although they were clearly a little lost. Taking pity on them, Frost explained: "Dr. Isles is very by-the-book, and she absolutely refuses to guess."

"She sounds like a consummate professional," commented Sally. "I hope we get to meet her."

"Stick around this one longer than an hour or two and you definitely will," said Frost, jerking his thumb in Jane's direction. "They're practically joined at the hip." He braced himself for the inevitable punch on the arm from Jane, but it never came.

Instead, she simply patted him on the back and said: "He calls 'em like he sees 'em."

_That's interesting_, thought Frost, and he filed it away for later investigation.

The secretary returned and announced: "The Principal will see you now. If you'll all just follow me through here."

Chad Barker was one of the largest men Jane had ever seen. He seemed to fill the office with his enormous body, and when he sat down in his desk chair after all the introductions had been made, she swore she heard it creak in protest. The walls were decorated with his diplomas and photographs, and Jane looked at them from her chair while she let Frost handle the talking. As he was explaining what they were doing there and about the two podcasters, Jane spotted something that caught her interest and she stood and crossed the room for a closer look.

The photograph was of a somewhat corpulent middle-aged man wearing a janitor's uniform, two identical twin boys, Charlotte Turner, and Barker himself. They were standing outside the school in almost the exact same spot where Jane and Frost had just met Sally and Henry for the first time, and they were all smiling. The janitor had a hand on each of the boys' shoulders. "Are these Charlotte Turner's two friends, uh…" She snapped her finger at Frost behind her without looking away from the photograph, and he promptly supplied the names.

"Rich and Robbie Dunbar." He stood and joined Jane near the photograph. "And the janitor, Gary Hopkins."

"It is indeed," replied Barker, not rising from his seat.

"When was this taken?" asked Frost.

"About a month before Charlotte…" Barker trailed off, his voice thick with emotion. He was blinking rapidly and not looking at the two Detectives.

Jane and Frost waited, but he didn't seem to want to complete the sentence or offer anything else. They exchanged glances, and then Jane unclipped her phone. "Do you mind if I take a picture of your picture?" she asked, starting up her camera app.

"Be my guest."

After she snapped a picture she noticed there was a text from Maura waiting for her, but she resisted the urge to open it at once. Instead, she clipped her phone back on her belt and said, "Alright then, we'll get out of your hair. We're just going to take a look around. You won't even know we're here."

As they started to file out, Barker said, "The school has already been searched by dozens of detectives over the years and nobody's found anything at all."

"Yeah? Well it's about to be searched by two more," said Jane, and then she turned and walked out of the room. Outside the reception area, Jane made a sweeping motion with her arm towards the hallway ahead of them and said to Sally: "Lead the way."

As they walked, Frost asked, "Where are we headed?"

"The basement," replied Sally confidently. "We've never actually been here but we pulled the blueprints from the local library, so we have a pretty good idea where we're going."

"The blueprints are public record?" asked Jane, eyeing the teenagers around them, who eyed her right back.

"The current ones aren't," said Sally, stopping the group in front of a door and pushing it open, "but the ones from ten years ago are."

Jane and Frost exchanged another glance and followed the podcasters down the stairway beyond the door.

It was quieter in the basement, and it didn't look at all like Jane had been expecting—she might as well have walked on to the set of a creepy horror movie. There were random piles of chairs, desks, and old books strewn about in seemingly random places, and pipes ran visible and exposed all along the ceiling. There was a steady dripping sound echoing from somewhere nearby. It was relatively well-lit, but it was so dusty and disorganized that the place still managed to feel dark and dank.

The podcasters led them through the maze of hallways, and eventually they reached a part that was in much better shape than everything they'd seen before. Up until this point the floor had been made of concrete, but here it was the same shiny linoleum that paved the hallways of the upper parts of the school. It was still dusty but clearly newer than the concrete they'd just left. "When did they renovate this portion?" asked Jane.

"After Charlotte disappeared," replied Sally, pleased that Jane had caught on so quickly. "It took us the better part of six months to find this information, but we recently learned that the construction crew was down here within two weeks of her disappearance."

"Have you been able to narrow the exact location where the crew was working from day to day?"

"Not quite that specifically, but we know they were in this wing. I can see you're thinking what we're thinking, that Charlotte might be under here," said Sally.

But Jane shook her head. "It's tempting to think that, but it's pretty unlikely," she said. "Not unless this whole floor was dirt before the renovations, but as we saw back there, it was concrete before it was linoleum."

"That's not all we found, Detective," said Sally, looking like the cat that ate the canary. They paused again before another door. "This is the place." The sign next to it labeled it as a supply closet. Sally went to push it open but Jane threw out her arm to stop her.

"Don't touch anything. There's probably no ten-year-old forensic evidence here but we need to be careful just in case."

She and Frost pulled out blue latex gloves and pushed the door open. It was the biggest supply closet Jane had ever seen, and it was jam-packed with old desks, the kind where the desk and chair are physically attached to one another. It was so full that there was no room for them to enter, but that didn't stop Jane from trying to get her tall, wiry frame through the tangle. A few minutes later she was forced to give up on it, though, and she rejoined the group in the hallway.

Frost looked over at Sally. "What makes you think she's in there?"

"A couple of different things. According to the blueprints we pulled, this closet used to be the janitor's office," replied Sally.

"Hopkins' office was in the basement?" Jane asked, pulling off her gloves and crossing her arms over her chest as she shifted easily in to detective mode. Sally felt a thrill run down her spine—this was the legendary Detective Rizzoli, and she was a paradigm of focus and concentration.

Sally nodded again. "They moved him up when they began renovations, and when they ran in to funding issues and were forced to abandon those renovations, they decided to have him stay up there instead of coming back down here. We've been trying to get inside the school so we could see if the floor here had been replaced, because this particular portion of the building was conspicuously left off the construction company's records. And now we know it has been replaced, just like we thought."

"That's awfully convenient," muttered Jane. "We're gonna need to see everything you got from the builders." A hundred questions were forming in her mind, and she pulled out her own notebook to make some notes.

Beside her, Frost was doing the same. "We need to find out who put those desks in here," he said.

"I was just thinking that," agreed Jane. "What else makes you think it's here, Miss Stark?"

"Oh, you can call me Sally," said Sally with a negligent wave of her hand. "We discovered that Gary Hopkins used to work in construction. He was a jackhammer specialist."

"Hmm," said Jane. "So he knew how to tear up stone floors."

Sally was practically vibrating with excitement. "And that's not all," she said, her voice wavering. "We know he owned his own jackhammer at that time, and we can prove it."

"How?" demanded Jane at once.

"We have the notarized bill of sale from the guy he ended up selling it to, dated seventeen days after Charlotte went missing."

Jane unclipped her cell phone and pushed a button on her speed dial. "The tip is good," said Jane when Korsak answered, watching Frost as he began taking photographs of the office with his own phone. "Get me a search warrant. We're gonna need a jackhammer and a forensics team at John Adams High School."

As the logistics of the investigation fell in to place, Jane was confident that there was nothing left for them to do here for the day and announced they should all head out. "I'm gonna go back to the station to run a search on Gary Hopkins," said Frost as they emerged back out in to the afternoon sunlight. "I'm sure it's been done before by other detectives but maybe I can find something they missed."

Jane wasn't listening. She was grinning at the text that Maura had sent her, which was, in usual Maura fashion, quite long and detailed. In it she suggested listening to _To Charlotte, With Love_ while she worked on the sink in the master bathroom, and it included specific instructions on how to find the podcast on the internet, which was redundant information because Maura had also included a direct link to a website where she could stream it. Then she went on to explain where she kept her portable speakers, and where in the master bathroom to place the speaker to avoid the risk of accidental electrocution. And Jane, in usual Jane fashion, replied: "Nice to know you think so highly of me that you assume I don't know how to not electrocute myself to death."

"Detective Rizzoli?" It was Sally's voice, and this time Jane did look up. All three of her companions were standing there staring at her.

"Sorry," she said, a little flustered. "Damn millennials and their phones, right? What were you saying?"

"I wanted to say thanks for letting us come along today. We'll drop by the station tomorrow to catch you up on some other stuff it might be helpful for you to know," Sally said.

"You guys are welcome to hang around at the station with us while we work the case. We could probably use your help," said Jane. After today, she wasn't going to turn her nose up on anything Sally Stark thought might be important.

Overwhelmed with delight, Sally said, "We would love that. Thank you so much."

"No problem," replied Jane. "And I'll give the program a listen tonight."

"We have transcripts for you both," said Henry, and he fished through his bag and pulled out two thick packets of paper. He handed one to each detective.

It was a thoughtful and helpful gesture, and Jane appreciated it immensely. It would be great to be able to take notes on portions as she listened. "Thanks," she said sincerely. "And thanks for your tip. If we find her I'll buy you both a beer." Once the podcasters had left, Jane said to Frost, "You mind dropping me at Maura's? We're so close and it's almost quitting time anyway. I promised I'd fix her sink."

"Is that a euphemism?" countered Frost with a shit-eating grin.

"Ha ha," laughed Jane sarcastically. "Such a funny guy, that Detective Frost. Shame he never returned from that cold case assignment in Beacon Hill."


	3. Bonus Content - Seamless

_If you were to ask around at BPD for three words to describe Detective Jane Rizzoli, you'd probably get three synonyms of "stubborn." Or maybe the three words would be "pain in ass."_

_I'm not saying they don't respect her, but I get the impression she's not exactly the most warm and fuzzy person on the planet._

_That's why when I finally worked up the nerve to ask her about her romantic relationship with Dr. Maura Isles, which was brand new when we were investigating Charlotte's case together, I had a few ideas about what she might do. They ranged from her refusing to answer, to her telling me to stand up, face the wall, and put my hands behind my head._

_Instead… Well, not only did I get the following recording, but I got permission to air the following recording._

"_Detective Rizzoli, do you mind if I ask about you and Dr. Isles?"_

"_Sure, what do you want to know?"_

"_Really? Okay, well, I guess we can start with how you two first met? And please don't tell me it was on the scene of a grisly murder."_

"_No, actually, it was much worse. I won't go in to the details, but can tell you that I was dressed like a prostitute, and she was wearing blue latex gloves."_

_And later I got this:_

"_You and Dr. Isles have worked together for so many years, and as a tag team you two are unstoppable. As a true crime junkie I can tell you that I am not surprised when I learn that the two of you are responsible for putting someone away. Why do you think you two work so well together?"_

"_Well… I guess… We're like a baseball. You know how a baseball is two strips of leather stitched tightly together? And together those two pieces hold in all the innards of the ball. That's how we are—except sometimes I think, for us, those stitches don't exist. When we're figuring out these cases, or even just talking, I can't tell if something's coming from me, or from her. We're so in tune with one another. We're just… Seamless."_

_That's right, people. Seamless. You guys, I hope you all manage to find someone who loves you as much as Jane Rizzoli loves Maura Isles._

-An excerpt from _To Charlotte, With Love_ \- Bonus Content: "Seamless"

* * *

As Jane was unlocking Maura's front door her cell phone vibrated from where it sat on her hip. She pulled it off its clip as she punched in the security code on the house alarm, then looked down and read the text she'd just gotten from Maura. "Frankie just brought another victim in so I'll be home about an hour late. Sorry!"

"No problem," Jane wrote back, even as a stab of disappointment shot through her. "Want me to order a pizza?"

"Meat lovers, please," replied Maura, and Jane chuckled.

"Have I ever mentioned how glad I am you learned how to make jokes?"

"I don't understand why you think I'm joking. I could go for a big juicy sausage right now."

"Do me a favor and take your temperature real quick? Need to check for subtle signs of sexual arousal."

"I'm not aroused by pizza, Jane."

"You're not?! …I mean, um, of course you're not. I'm not either. That would be weird."

She was disappointed when Maura didn't text back, and she was forced to conclude that work had drawn her attention away from her phone. An image of Maura standing in the morgue in her scrubs smiling down at her cell phone popped in to her mind. That had been when Maura was texting with Ian, but she couldn't help but wonder if Maura looked like that when she was texting with Jane, as well.

She was still standing in the foyer; the text exchange with Maura had distracted her so thoroughly that she hadn't taken more than two steps in to the house. Now she headed over to the guest room to change in to some jeans and a ratty old BPD t-shirt she had stored in the dresser so that she didn't get any grime on her work clothes. Then she doubled back to the kitchen and grabbed the portable speakers Maura had mentioned and a beer out of the fridge and brought them with her to the bathroom in Maura's bedroom. She pulled up Maura's text from earlier, tapped on the hyperlink and started the first episode of the podcast before setting to work on the sink.

It took about 45 minutes to finish the job, but the time flew by as she listened to Sally Stark narrate the details of Charlotte Turner's life and disappearance. Before she knew it, she'd listened to the entire first episode and half of the second. The first episode was surprisingly personal as Sally explained why she'd chosen to research this particular cold case: It was because they had been best friends when they were growing up.

Sally and Charlotte had gone to the same elementary and middle school in Pennsylvania, but then Charlotte and her family had moved to Boston about a year before Charlotte had gone missing. Sally candidly explained that though they'd cried and been devastated when they were forced to part, they had promised one another to keep in touch. Neither one of the girls had followed through on the promise, however. Soon they had both become swept up in their new high school lives. Charlotte had called Sally on her birthday about a month after she'd moved away, but that was the last time Sally ever talked to her. It was easy to discern the regret in Sally's voice as she told her story, and Jane found herself tearing up as she wrestled with her socket wrench.

In the first episode, Sally made an artistic decision that Jane appreciated to barely mention Charlotte's disappearance at all. Instead, she used the first 30 minutes of her program to describe the girl she'd known and loved, and she began to introduce the other people who had loved her as well. She interviewed both parents and one of Charlotte's favorite teachers. The listener also got to hear from Gary Hopkins and Robbie Dunbar, and Jane listened to their interviews carefully. They both sounded sincere in their sadness as they described the girl they'd known. Despite knowing her for only a year before she was taken from them, she had clearly left a lasting impression in their minds.

One new detail that Sally mentioned was that Rich Dunbar had since passed away, and she promised her listeners that a future episode would be devoted entirely to his "life, crimes, and death." Jane made a mental note to have Frost run a background check on the deceased Dunbar twin, if he hadn't done so already.

Then in the second episode Sally described the details of the last days of Charlotte's life. There wasn't any information in it that Jane hadn't already learned from the BPD's case file. In fact there were details that she knew that it seemed like Sally didn't know.

When she finished with the sink she paused the podcast and went to put the toolbox away in its place in Maura's utility closet, and then she called in her pizza order—half plain, and half mushroom for Maura. Years of experience had taught her that the delivery kid and Maura should arrive at roughly the same time.

As Jane was scrubbing the mechanical grime off her hands in the kitchen sink, her mother walked in the back door. "Hey sweetie," said Angela, looking around. "Where's Maura?"

"Still at work," Jane told her. "She should be home soon, though."

"Oh," said Angela, running her fingers along the edge of the countertop. It was the type of "oh" that Jane knew well. It usually meant her mother was about to express a highly annoying opinion.

Grabbing a dish towel to dry her hands, Jane gave her mother an irritated look. "What?"

Angela shrugged one shoulder. "I thought maybe she was on a date."

"What?" said Jane again, this time utterly confused. "Maura isn't seeing anyone right now."

"I know that. And neither are you, right?" asked Angela.

It had been over three months since the last time Angela had pestered Jane about her complete lack of a love life, and Jane was disappointed that her luck had run out at last. "Come on, Ma, don't start up with this again," groaned Jane.

"I'm not. I'm just making an observation. Neither one of you is dating. Instead, the two of you spend more time together than you ever have before, and that's saying something. But somehow you both seem happier than ever."

Leaning against the countertop, Jane obstinately crossed her arms over her chest. "What exactly are you trying to say?"

"Detective Frost told me you and Maura had salad for lunch. _Salad, _Jane!"

"What the hell, Ma? You're gossiping with Frost about me now?"

"He was in the café for lunch today. I wanted him to take you a sandwich and he told me you brought salads to Maura's office."

"Okay, fine, yeah, I brought salad," confessed Jane, exasperated. "I still want to know where you're going with this."

Angela came around the kitchen island and took both of Jane's hands in her own. "I think you know where I'm going, Janie. And I want you to know that I've really enjoyed seeing you so happy recently. No matter _what_ or _who _is causing it." She met Jane's eyes with a focused intensity that Jane couldn't look away from. "You got that?"

Normally Jane's instinct would be to shake her mother off and roll her eyes, but this time was different. Something deep inside of Jane came alive and shifted aside, and she knew that this had just become one of the most important conversations she would ever have with her mother. She felt completely blind-sided by it, though, and for a long moment all she could do was look into her mother's eyes, taking in their warmth and love. Finally, Jane nodded and squeezed her hands. "Yeah, I got it," she rasped. "Thanks, Ma." She dropped her gaze, needing a moment to try and keep herself from crying. It was completely ridiculous, of course, but she couldn't help it.

"You talked to Maura about this yet?" Angela ventured carefully, her voice soft and compassionate.

"No, not yet." Jane gave a shaky sigh. "It's scary."

"Sweetie, I don't think you have anything to be scared of," said Angela with a chuckle. "That girl loves you."

The words sent a tingle up Jane's spine and made her stomach do a happy flip. The best part was that Jane knew it was the truth. "I know she does," she replied. "I'm not worried about that. I'm mostly worried I'll screw it up somehow. I mean… It's _Maura_, you know? I've got a hell of a lot to lose if it falls apart."

"But a hell of a lot more to gain if it doesn't," countered Angela. "You should tell her."

"I will soon," Jane assured her. "I've been thinking about it recently."

"You two have been so close for such a long time. What changed?"

Jane shrugged. "I don't know, Ma. It's definitely been a long time coming for both of us. Once I understood what was going on I tried to ignore it. But that didn't work at all, and eventually I got tired of being in denial. I realized it's a huge waste of energy. I love her so much," she said emphatically. "Why should I bother fighting that? How could it possibly be a bad thing?"

Reaching up, Angela patted her daughter's cheek affectionately. "It's not."

"And I get that now. She's the best thing that ever happened to me. So I think I'll let it happen." Her phone vibrated and she picked it up and checked it—Maura was letting her know she was leaving work. Excitement bubbled in Jane's chest at thought of their impending reunion. They hadn't seen each other in over five hours. That was _way_ too long, in Jane's opinion.

"You got a time frame on that?" asked Angela impatiently. "If you two are gonna give me grandchildren the clock is ticking."

Jane regarded her mother contemplatively. "How about tonight?" she said. "That soon enough for you?"

Angela's jaw dropped. "Are you serious?"

"Sure," replied Jane with an easy smile. "Why not?"

For reply, Angela threw her arms around her daughter and squeezed happily, and then she abruptly turned and headed for the back door. "I'm gone. In fact I was never here." Before she shut the door behind her, she blew Jane a kiss and said, "Love you, Janie. Text me in the morning, if you think of it." Then she winked and left.

Shaking her head, Jane laughed and selected a bottle of wine from the cabinet. Then she went to collect the portable speaker from Maura's bathroom and plugged it back in to the charger in the living room where she'd found it. After she'd done that, she thought about what she intended to do tonight and decided to change out of the dirty t-shirt she was wearing. She selected a different BPD t-shirt she kept here at Maura's house that was much newer and less ragged and put that on instead. For a moment she wondered if maybe she should try and put more of an effort in to her appearance for this, but ultimately decided that after so many years of close friendship, Maura ought to know by now that Jane preferred to dress casually. In fact, she was willing to bet that Maura liked that about her. So she banished the thought from her mind.

She was just uncorking the wine when Maura walked in. Their eyes met and they grinned at each other. "Hey," said Jane, and the cork came loose with a pop.

"Hi," replied Maura. "Is that a Malbec?"

"It is."

"Perfect," said Maura briskly as she set her purse down on the counter and accepted a glass from Jane. "It'll pair nicely with my sausage."

"Girls don't have sausages, 'Doctor' Isles," said Jane, putting sarcastic finger quotation marks around the word 'doctor' and rolling her eyes. "Shows how much you know about anatomy."

"I wasn't using the word sausage as a euphemism for the male anatomy, Jane. I was referring to actual sausage, as in ground meat encased in a thin membrane usually made of either genuine animal intestine or a synthetic imitation of such."

Jane made a disgusted noise. "God, when you put it that way I am so glad we're not eating that crap anymore."

"I could tell you things about hot dogs that would make your hair curl," said Maura. Then, after a beat, she amended: "That is, curl more than it already does."

"Please don't," said Jane, wincing. "I don't care about the hot dogs, but if my hair curls any more than it already does I'm going to start getting thrown out of movie theaters for blocking everyone's view."

Maura laughed and turned to head over to her bedroom. "I'm going to change in to something more comfortable, but then I want to hear about what happened with the podcasters today."

A smile played on Jane's lips as she watched Maura walk away, knowing that under normal circumstances, Maura's idea of "comfortable" was roughly equivalent to most peoples' idea of "business casual." But over the years as Maura grew more comfortable with her, she had gradually introduced more and more sleepwear, and now Jane was quite sure Maura would reappear in something only slightly less casual than what Jane herself was wearing. Jane couldn't wait to see. Her impatient feet began carrying her towards Maura's bedroom. Maura emerged just as Jane approached. She looked adorable in her sweater and yoga pants, and Jane decided she'd had quite enough of not kissing this woman.

When Jane kissed Maura for the first time, there was no pause or hesitation in it. Instead it was part of a seamless motion—as seamless as the progression of their relationship. From strangers to colleagues, from colleagues to friends, from friends to best friends, from best friends to lovers. Jane walked right up to Maura, took her face in her hands, and brought their lips together. It felt easy and natural and right.

It was short but sweet, and Jane backed off just enough to take in Maura's expression, delighting in the barely-contained glee sparkling in her eyes. "Okay?" Jane asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

"That depends," Maura replied breathily, running her thumb over Jane's bottom lip.

"On what?"

"On whether or not you fixed my sink."

Grinning, Jane said, "Yeah, I fixed it."

"Okay, then," said Maura, and she wrapped her arms around Jane's shoulders and drew her back for a much longer kiss. But she had to break away to laugh when Jane hugged her tightly and lifted her off the ground, her smile so big that Maura wasn't sure she'd have been able to keep kissing her anyway. "Jane!" she squealed through her mirth.

"Sorry. Can't help myself," said Jane, and she placed Maura back on her feet, backed her up against the wall, and kissed her again. She couldn't get over how small Maura was. It was a new experience to kiss someone who was so much shorter than her. And she smelled incredible. Maura was also soft—so, so soft. Jane couldn't decide where she liked having her hands best. Feeling the racing pulse on Maura's neck was awesome, but so was the feeling of her gorgeous blonde hair sifting between her fingers. And the curves of her hips were unreasonably sexy. If she put her hands there and spread out her fingers, she could almost cover the whole curve. Maura was so feminine, so delicate, and so beautiful. It was different from what she was used to, but now that she'd felt it, she couldn't imagine wanting anything else.

They finally drew apart and beamed at each other. "That was nice," said Maura.

"Eh, turns out I'm not that in to it," replied Jane, scrunching up her nose.

"Don't tease me, Jane. Not about that."

"Sorry," said Jane. "I promise I was only teasing. I liked it, too. You're beautiful, and that was…" She shook her head, taking Maura's hands in her own and smiling. "Can we do that again?"

The doorbell rang and they both turned to stare at the front door. "Apparently not," said Maura, sighing. "That must be our pizza."

"Ordering that pizza was probably the biggest mistake I've ever made," grumbled Jane, and Maura laughed. When Maura tried to get out from between Jane and the wall, Jane pinned her back with an assertive hand on her shoulder. "Woah woah woah! Where do you think you're going?"

The doorbell rang again. "To get the door," said Maura, laughing again as Jane ducked down for a kiss. She allowed it for a few delightful seconds before pulling away again. "Jane, I'm hungry and the delivery guy is going to leave."

Frowning, Jane considered the situation. "Okay, I have a solution. I'll go with you." She let Maura pass, but wrapped her long arms around her waist from behind, and together they shuffled awkwardly to the front door, laughing the whole way. When Maura opened the door, their usual delivery kid from their favorite pizza shop was standing there, and as soon as he saw them his entire face turned red. "Hello, Jason. How are you today?" said Jane, resting her chin on Maura's shoulder. She didn't miss the shiver that went through Maura's body when she spoke, her voice so close to her ear.

"Not as good as you, Detective Rizzoli," replied Jason, regaining his bearings. "That'll be $12.50."

When Jane removed an arm to fish out her money, Maura grabbed her hand and pulled it back to its place around her waist. "It's my turn to get it. My wallet's in my purse on the kitchen table."

"Alright, let's go," said Jane cheerfully. They waddled to the table and Maura grabbed some cash. Then they waddled back to Jason, who was laughing at them.

"I always wondered about you two," he said as Maura swapped her money for the pizza he was carrying.

"Yes, well, you were right. Bye now," said Maura hurriedly, beginning to close the door.

"Wait, Dr. Isles, you gave me a fifty…"

Maura cut him off with: "Keep it. Good night, Jason." She kicked the door shut and put the pizza box on the table by the front door. Then she surprised Jane by spinning in her arms, turning them around, and pressing Jane up against the door.

Raising her eyebrows, Jane said, "This is new. Since when are you so aggressive?"

"Shut up and kiss me," demanded Maura.

"You got it."

Eventually they got around to the pizza, and Jane filled Maura in on what had happened at the high school that day. Then they lounged on the couch and listened to the rest of _To Charlotte, With Love_. Jane took notes on her transcripts and they paused the program frequently to bounce ideas off one another. Once they had finished, Maura said, "You should really be working on this with Frost, not me. I'm not a detective."

"You might as well be," said Jane. Maura was reclining against her, close enough to be able to read the transcripts that Jane had in her lap. "I know you don't put much stock in gut feelings, but your hunches are solid even though you won't admit it."

"Maybe, but I don't need to explain to you that there's a lot more to being a detective than getting reliable information from your gastro-intestinal system. I could never understand people as well or as instinctively as you." She paused, and then added: "Not live ones, anyway."

"You understand me," observed Jane. "Better than I understand myself sometimes."

"That doesn't count."

Jane's jaw dropped, a completely offended look coming over her face. "What do you mean I don't count? I'm about to kick you off your own damn couch, Maura."

Laughing, Maura took her hand and patted it reassuringly. "That's not what I meant. I just mean that it's not the same thing when it comes to you. I made a conscious and concerted effort to learn to understand you implicitly."

"You did?" asked Jane, her heart melting in her chest.

"Of course I did. And I think you probably did the same for me."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that. Half the time I don't understand a single word that comes out of your mouth." When Maura opened her mouth to respond, Jane put her finger on her lips to stop her. "I know that's not what you mean. You're right. I may not always understand the contents of all the random factoids you come out with, but I always understand why you're coming out with them. And do you want to know something, Maura?"

"What?"

"The fact that we understand each other so well, that's what's going to make this," she gestured back and forth between herself and Maura, "make _us_ work. My detective gut is telling me that this is going to work. Isn't yours?"

Maura leaned up to place a soft kiss on Jane's smiling lips. "Yes," she said. "It is."

"Yay."

"I concur. But…"

Jane groaned and let her head fall against the back of the couch. "I knew it. I knew there was a 'but.' This was entirely too easy."

Laughing, Maura slapped Jane's stomach with the back of her hand. "Stop. It's nothing bad." She paused and chewed her bottom lip before launching in to a hasty stream of word vomit. "I just think that with the sheer magnitude of the emotional investment we've put in each other over the years, we run the risk of getting overconfident and making a misstep in to a venture we're maybe not quite prepared for yet."

"So… What I'm hearing is that you think we should take it slow so that it doesn't blow up in our faces."

"God, Jane," said Maura dreamily. "It's going to be so nice to do this with someone who actually gets me for once."

"I do get you, Maur, so you don't have to be nervous."

"I'm not nervous," said Maura unconvincingly.

"Uh huh. Your hives and babbling are telling me otherwise. Look, I agree we shouldn't rush. And you don't have to treat me like a piece of evidence. You can take the blue gloves off. If there's something you want to say, just say it, alright?"

"Alright." Maura took a moment to gather herself, and then she turned to Jane and placed her hand against her cheek. "I hope you know that you are extremely important to me, and if we're really going to do this then I want to keep you."

"That's good," said Jane warmly, "because we're really going to do this, and I'm yours."


	4. S2E2 - The Search

**Author's Note:** Clearly I'm a fast updater, and that's because I'm always WAY ahead on my stories before I start posting them. I have maybe one or two chapters left to write in this story, and then it'll be all over but for the posting. It's looking like the total word count will clock in around 40k. That being said, this will be my last update for at least a week because I'm going AFK on vacation.

I also wanted to say that I just finished my first ever total viewing of Rizzoli & Isles, and I would like to express my deepest frustrations and irritations that Rizzles isn't actually a thing. What a waste, man. Total waste of perfectly good chemistry. I guess the only recourse is to retreat in to fanfiction. God bless imagination, right?

* * *

_Henry and I had no idea what was going to happen when we took our tip to the BPD. My first big break as a reporter was a story I did about the Philadelphia Police Department, and the PPD was… less than friendly. I had to fight for everything I got from them, and that really wasn't much._

_The BPD was different almost immediately. We called the tip line and explained who we were and that we wanted to meet with someone in person regarding Charlotte's case. We were set up the next day with a meeting. We met with Lieutenant Sean Cavanaugh on Friday afternoon. On Monday morning, we met Detectives Rizzoli and Frost outside John Adams High, and the rest is history._

_We weren't just tolerated, we were welcomed. We never had to ask to ride along, it was taken for granted that we were coming. We sat in on brainstorm sessions and interviews. And above all else, we were _involved_. We may not be cops, but the BPD detectives knew we had our own set of skills, and we were put to use. Unorthodox? Maybe. But as you'll hear, it got results._

_The best thing we got to see was the sheer force of intellect inside the BPD. From the uniformed officers, to the detectives, and to the office of the medical examiner, there are minds of the highest caliber working to solve cases. And it was an absolute pleasure and privilege to be a part of that._

_ -_An excerpt from _To Charlotte, With Love_ – S2E2: The Search

* * *

Maura stood in her scrubs in her pristine morgue and wondered if the dead man lying on the table in front of her had ever been in love before.

Humanity was capable of such beauty and such horror, and love could be the source of both. She'd seen victims murdered for crimes of jealous love, kids who'd committed suicide over heartbreak, even a newlywed who'd died with a smile on her face during her honeymoon. It was hard to believe that it was one emotion that could create such a huge impact on so many members of the human race.

But she'd never realized that the most earth-shattering thing was the day-to-day reality of being in love. How was she expected to know that waking in her bed with Jane's arms around her would completely ruin her for sleeping alone? What could have prepared her for the surge of warmth and tenderness that had roared through her at hearing "Morning, Maur" in Jane's hoarse morning voice, and unadulterated joy of the feeling of soft lips pressing against her shoulder? Who could have told her about how she would never be able to look at her kitchen the same way again now that she'd watched Jane casually navigate her sophisticated coffee machine in precisely the way that Maura had taught her?

It was the minutiae of it all that perplexed her and threw her off balance. It was the tiny details that stuck with Maura as she attempted to re-learn the world she lived in now—the world where she was permitted to love Jane Rizzoli with all her heart.

They'd slept together. Only slept. Jane was being incredibly sweet to her. She was respectful of Maura's boundaries and accommodating of her eccentricities, of which there were many. They'd fought playfully over who would take what side of the bed, but Maura knew it was only because Jane wanted her to feel comfortable. Jane didn't care where she slept, as long as she was beside Maura. Not that Jane had specifically said as much, but Maura knew Jane better than she knew herself, and she knew with a certainty that all Jane wanted was to be near her, and it didn't matter if she was on her right or her left. And last night Maura realized the same was true for her.

So as a test for herself, Maura had engineered an end to the bickering that resulted in her sleeping on the left side of the bed. Maura had _never_ slept on the left side of her own bed before. At first it had felt uncomfortable and wrong as she waited tensely for Jane to finish brushing her teeth and come to bed. She was worried about how awkward it was going to be when she had to fess up to Jane and ask to switch sides. In her nervousness she turned on her side and pulled the blankets around herself, putting her back to the master bathroom where the recently-repaired sink was running as Jane finished her ablutions.

But then Jane had climbed in to bed behind her and wrapped her up in those strong arms that Maura loved to feel around her. She'd pulled Maura close, nuzzling her nose in to her hair. "Is this okay?" she'd rasped quietly, and all Maura could do was nod, her uncertainty melting away in an instant.

Because Jane was the opposite of uncertainty. Jane was her constant. There was nothing Maura could say that would change the way Jane felt about her, and she knew it. She could have asked Jane to swap sides once an hour every hour, and Jane would do it. She would complain about it, but she would still do it.

Maura had never slept so well in her life.

The door to the morgue opened and jerked Maura out of her reverie. "I have the lab results," said Susie. "He was poisoned with arsenic."

What Maura meant to say was: "Thank you Susie." What she actually said was: "Do you think he's ever been in love before?"

Susie stared at her. "Beg your pardon?"

Maura was embarrassed, but not embarrassed enough to drop the line of inquiry now that it had been started. "Love is such a powerful emotion. It can even change the chemical composition of your brain. Some scientists believe it may even be possible to determine if someone is in love by checking for oxytocin in the blood. What if there's a way to tell by physicality, too? Is it so far-fetched to hypothesize that we could see love just by looking at someone?"

"Umm," said Susie, looking worried that her hero and mentor had completely lost her mind. "Did… you want me to run a diagnostic on his oxytocin levels?"

"Just take a look at him, Susie. Do you see love there?"

Still extremely concerned and confused, Susie stared at the dead man and stammered, "I really don't think I'm qualified to make a determination about that, Dr. Isles."

"No," sighed Maura, "I suppose not. And neither am I."

When her cell phone vibrated on the metal tool tray next to the autopsy table they both jumped—Susie from surprise, and Maura from excitement. She tore off her gloves and grabbed her phone. "Jane says the podcasters are here. I'm going to go meet them," she told Susie. "I'll be back down in a bit."

Observing Maura head to the showers to change out of her scrubs, Susie felt perfectly qualified to determine that, based on the flush in her cheeks, the rapidity of her movement, and the bizarre conversation they'd just had, Dr. Maura Isles was in love.

Maura was used to eyes turning her way when she entered a room, and the bullpen had never been an exception to that rule. She couldn't lie so she'd never claim she didn't enjoy the attention, but she'd never enjoyed it more than she did that morning. Immediately upon entering the room, Jane caught her eye. They could have been the only two people on the planet. Everything they'd said and done the night before came back to her in a rush, and she'd never wanted anything more than she wanted to kiss Jane right then. Reigning in the desire to pounce on Jane, she approached block of desks where Jane, Frost, Korsak, and two strangers were going through a couple boxes of files that the podcasters had brought with them to the station. Jane rose and put her hand on the small of Maura's back.

"Sally, Henry, this is Dr. Maura Isles," she said, not bothering to hide the pride in her voice. As far as Jane was concerned, Maura was the greatest person on the entire planet and she could barely even believe how lucky she was to get to be standing beside her, let alone touching her. Jane noticed Frost and Korsak exchanging a glance, and she knew they'd already figured her out. They were both excellent detectives. Far from being embarrassed, she was actually quite relieved. It was so much easier when she didn't have to use words to explain things. "Maura, this is Sally Stark and Henry Simon."

"It's a pleasure to meet you both," said Maura sincerely as she shook their hands. "Miss Stark, I've been a fan of your work ever since I heard your first story on _This American Life_."

"Oh that's old school," laughed Sally. "I can't believe anyone remembers that."

"It was a memorable story." Addressing the detectives, she explained, "She did a story on an African American man who was wrongfully convicted of murder in Pennsylvania by an all-white jury. He served over thirty years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Because of her reporting, the Philadelphia Police Department ran the DNA evidence again and it exonerated him."

"Damn," said Frost, leaning back in his chair. "So you two are the real deal."

"We're journalists," said Sally. "We pursue the truth at all costs."

"And there was a cost associated with it," added Maura. "She was charged with evidence tampering by the PPD."

Sally waved away the comment. "A bogus charge, of course. We had followed all the proper channels. The cops wanted to flaunt their muscle to scare me. It kept me tied up in a legal battle for a few months, but we got the charges thrown out eventually. It was a small price to pay to get Reggie out of prison."

Pointing at Sally, Jane turned to Maura and the other detectives. "I like her. Don't you guys like her?"

Laughing, Sally said, "That's very flattering, but if anyone here is commendable, it's you and your teammates. Your homicide department has the second highest closing rate of any major city in the country."

"Most of that is thanks to Maura," said Jane. "She's a one-woman crime-solving case-breaking machine."

Rolling her eyes, Maura said, "Don't listen to her. She wears rose-tinted glasses when it comes to me."

Frost and Korsak burst in to laughter.

Not at all discomfited, Jane crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Maura. "Yeah, sure. I wear rose-tinted glasses. You're incapable of lying, right Maura? I've got a question for you. Who's the best detective in this unit?"

"You, obviously," replied Maura at once.

Spreading her arms out wide and turning to the others, Jane said, "I rest my case." She smirked when Frost and Korsak continued to cackle. "And now that we've got that established, let's talk about Charlotte Turner. Maura, would you like to join us?"

"I can't," said Maura regretfully. "We're swamped down there; I really should be getting back. It was very nice meeting you both. I'm sure we'll meet again once you've found that poor girl's body. And I have every confidence that you'll find her."

"I hope you're right," replied Sally. "Good meeting you, too."

Disappointed that Maura was leaving, Jane said, "I'm going walk Maura out. Go ahead and get started without me; I'll be right back."

With Frost and Korsak snickering the whole way, Maura and Jane headed to the elevator. But halfway down the hallway, Jane grabbed Maura's hand and pulled her in to the women's bathroom. Knowing exactly what Jane wanted, Maura went willingly. The door had barely closed behind them before Jane was kissing her. They didn't care that there was someone else in the restroom—Officer Maria Rodriguez gave them an amused look as she passed them on her way out, but neither Jane nor Maura minded. After she left they were alone. There weren't very many women working on this floor, after all.

"Mmm," hummed Maura happily against Jane's lips. "I was hoping I'd get to do that while I was up here, but I wasn't sure you'd appreciate it if I attacked you at your desk."

"Oh I would have appreciated it alright," said Jane, running her fingers through Maura's hair. "And I think every heterosexual male in the room would have, too. But we should probably avoid that kind of thing at work. I don't mind if people know, but I'm not interested in being the star of any masturbatory fantasies."

Maura scrunched her nose up in disgust. "You're right. Me either. I didn't even think about that."

"Really?" said Jane flatly. "We're two hot chicks who like to make out with each other, and it didn't occur to you that a bunch of red-blooded men might be interested in seeing that?"

"I can see how that would seem like an oversight to you, but you're neglecting to consider the fact that when I walk in to a room and you're in it, it can be difficult for me to think about anything else."

Jane disentangled herself from Maura and walked a few steps away to lightly bang her head against the wall. Then she turned around again and hugged Maura tightly, just barely resisting the urge to lift her off her feet like she had the day earlier. She'd never been this happy before. "If anyone else had said that to me, I would have thought it was a stupid line. But you said it, so it's true, right?"

"It's true," confirmed Maura. "It's been true for years. But I've learned to compartmentalize enough to be able to… How did you put it? Be a one-woman crime-solving case-breaking machine."

"That's exactly how I put it," said Jane fondly.

"I thought so." Maura reached up and tucked Jane's hair back behind her ear. "I need to get back to work, and so do you."

Pouting, Jane said, "I don't wanna."

"You've got a girl to find, Detective. Here's what's going to happen: You're going to give me one more kiss, and then we're both going to go be professionals."

"Only one more?"

"Yes, so you'd better make it a good one."

"Okay, but first you have to tell me I'm the best detective in the unit again."

Laughing, Maura said: "You're the best detective in the…" But then her lips became otherwise occupied.

When Jane returned to the bullpen she was still floating on her Maura cloud, smiling and enjoying the occasional whiff of the traces of Maura's perfume on her shirt. She plopped down at her desk and cleared the fog in her brain enough to notice Frost and Korsak grinning at her. "You jealous?" she asked.

"Uh huh," said Frost.

"Yep," said Korsak.

"Definitely," blurted Henry, and everyone stared at him. "Sorry."

A chime sounded and Korsak picked up his phone from where it sat on his desk. "Good news," he said. "Search warrant came through."

"You got that jackhammer team standing by?" Jane asked him.

"I do."

"Alright," said Jane, standing and pulling her blazer from the back of her chair. It was way too hot out to wear it, but Maura insisted she continue to bring it to work because the drastic fluctuations in temperature exposure from going in and out of air conditioning had a significantly detrimental effect on the immune system and could greatly increase the risk of contracting a sinus infection, but avoiding becoming too chilled while indoors would negate any potential harm to her body's natural defenses. So Jane took her jacket with her—not because she was worried about getting a sinus infection, but because whatever Maura wanted her to do, she did. Shaking herself out of her thoughts of Maura, she continued: "Let's go find out if Sally Stark has pulled off another investigative miracle."

"Preferably one without a lengthy legal battle afterwards," said Sally wryly, slinging the canvas strap on her audio recorder over her body.

"You two can ride with Korsak," said Jane to the podcasters. She wanted to talk to Frost in private. "Frost, I'll drive."

Once they were underway and Frost had adjusted the air conditioning to be icy cold, he started the conversation that Jane had been trying to figure out how to start. "So you and Dr. Isles, huh?"

"Looks that way. That okay with you?"

"My mother married a woman, Jane. And by the way, they spotted you two from a mile away."

"They spotted wrong. We weren't anything back then."

"You were _absolutely_ something back then. You've always been something."

A slow smiled stretched over Jane's lips. "Fair enough. But I'm guessing you'll take some heat for being the partner of the dyke cop."

"You think I care about that? I'm lucky to be your partner. Maura's right. You're the best detective in the city."

Jane felt incredibly flattered, and affection for her partner swelled within her. "I don't know about that, but thanks for saying it."

"I'm happy for you, Jane. And jealous of you. They don't get much better than Dr. Isles."

"No, they really don't. And you can call her Maura, by the way."

Frost shook his head. "I like calling her Dr. Isles. You weren't wrong when you said she's a big part of our operation. She deserves our respect."

"You're preaching to the choir, bud. But listen, Frost: She knows you respect her and she appreciates that, but she appreciates your friendship much more."

"Huh," said Frost thoughtfully. "I never thought about it that way before."

"Don't get me wrong, she does consider you a friend, and she knows you consider her one, too. But she's spent her whole life being distant from people. She never had close friends before… Before me, I guess." The idea of Maura being lonely for so many years made Jane's heart ache. _She'll never be alone again_, she thought. _Not if I can help it._ "Anyway, I know it would mean a lot to her."

"Damn," said Frost. "You really got it bad for her."

"Yeah, I do. And it's terminal."

The truck with all the construction equipment was waiting outside the school when they arrived, and Korsak was already directing them. The two podcasters were recording nearby. "You want us to go inside the school and serve the warrant?" Frost offered.

"Please," answered Korsak. "And find out where the freight elevator is so we can start unloading our equipment."

"I know where it is," said Henry. "I can take you there."

Sally and Henry split up. Henry stayed with Korsak and Sally followed Jane and Frost in to the school. The same secretary who had been at the desk the day before was sitting behind the counter. "Oh," she said, sitting up straighter, "you're back."

"Is Principal Barker here? We'd like to speak with him," said Jane.

When Barker came out of his office, his face was set and stern. "Hello again Detectives. What can I do for you?"

As Frost handed him a copy of the search warrant, Jane said, "We need to pry up some of the floor in your basement."

"Now?" asked Barker incredulously. "School is still in session."

"Yes, now. Our crew is already moving in. We'll be posting officers at all the entrances to the basement to make sure no one comes downstairs. Don't worry; this isn't our first rodeo. You won't even know we're here."

"And that's actually kind of the point," said Frost. "We don't want anyone finding out what's going on here today. I hope we can count on your discretion in this matter, because it could compromise the integrity of our investigation if people find out what we're doing here."

"Fine," said Barker, sighing. "Go on then. Good luck, detectives. I hope you find her."

"Thanks. We hope so too," said Jane.

They left the office and headed towards the basement. "He doesn't seem too happy about this," muttered Frost to Jane. "He's been here since before Charlotte went missing. You think he could have anything to do with it?"

"I'm definitely not ruling it out." Jane glanced at Sally. "What do you think, Sally?"

"He was known to be friends with Gary Hopkins," responded Sally, shocked that Jane had asked. The only other cops she'd ever interacted with extensively were the ones who'd brought charges against her in her Philadelphia, and they certainly couldn't have cared less what she thought. "They used to drink at the same bar together up until about a year ago."

"What happened a year ago?"

"No one knows for sure," Sally said. "But some of their mutual acquaintances speculate that they could have fallen out because Barker forced Hopkins to retire early for health reasons around that time. Hopkins is only 63 but he's got End Stage Renal Disease and he's dependent on dialysis."

By the time they got downstairs to the former janitor's office the CSRU had cleared most of the desks out of the office, and a team of four techs were meticulously dusting them for prints. It was time-consuming—there were a lot of prints on them. "That's probably going to be a waste of our time and fingerprint powder," said Jane.

"I think you're right about that," agreed Frost. "I talked to the current janitor, he says the desks were put in there on his orders."

"Could he have a connection with the case?"

"I doubt it. He only moved here from Mexico about three years ago."

"Okay," said Jane, mollified. "You know what, why don't you tell them to give it a rest for now? Have them focus on the floor first so we can start tearing it up."

"Good idea," said Frost. "I'm on it." He walked off towards the crime scene techs to relay the message.

Korsak came over to tell Jane and the reporters: "We're ready to start jackhammering. It's going to be noisy down here for a while. Is that going to interfere with your recording?"

"Absolutely it will," replied Sally. "We'd probably be able to pick it up from anywhere in the school. This might be a good time for Henry and me to tour the locker rooms and the baseball field."

"I'll go with you," said Frost, who had returned to the group. "You should probably be accompanied by a badge anyway in case the administration decides to rescind your invitation."

After they had gone, Korsak and Jane put on sound-muffling headphones and sat down nearby to wait. Jane took out her phone to text Maura updates on everything that had happened, including her conversation with Frost in the car. "You're wonderful, Jane," Maura wrote back. "Thank you." And Jane felt like she'd found one of Mario's mushrooms and grown to be a million feet tall.

It took about forty minutes to pry up all the linoleum, and then the team switched to shovels to begin carefully sifting through the dirt underneath it. Not long after that, Frost and the podcasters returned, and they went in to the office to observe, take notes, and record the sound of shovels in the dirt.

Then, after another thirty minutes, one of the techs near the center of the room said, "Detective Rizzoli? I think I got something."

Jane took out her flashlight and went over to his hole. Everyone in the room went still and silent as they waited. She squatted down and shined the light on the dirt, leaning in close to look. There was something brownish white there, just a tiny little spot. Wordlessly, she held out her hand and someone placed a small gardening shovel in her blue latex-covered palm. With careful precision, she strategically removed the dirt, revealing more of what was buried beneath it. After a few dips of the shovel, there was no mistaking it. "Korsak, call in Maura. We've got bones here."

By the time Maura arrived, they had fully exposed all the bones and crime scene photographers were snapping pictures of them from every angle. Whoever had put the body here had posed it—it was lying flat on its back, and its arms were crossed over its chest, the hands resting on the shoulders.

Jane stood as Maura approached, drawing comfort from her presence. Seeing her snap on her blue gloves, her focus directed on the skeleton in the dirt, brought a rush of emotion within Jane. Maura seemed so strong and brave and in control at that moment, and Jane felt like she was fraying around the edges. She'd been so hoping to find Charlotte alive. But seeing Maura helped, because it reminded her that at least now the kid had a chance at justice.

Maura began her narration as she fearlessly knelt next to the remains, sharing the knowledge that would be so crucial for solving the case. "Definitely a young female, between the ages of twelve and eighteen. She's been here for a long time, between 5 and 10 years. " She craned her neck, shining a flashlight on the dirt and peering closely. "She was clothed when buried. There are some traces of her clothing, but most of it has degraded as well. It's some sort of wool blend." She looked up at the techs, motioning for them to begin collecting the miniscule scraps of fabric.

"Do you think it's Charlotte?" asked Frost.

"You know I can't comment on that yet, Barry," Maura admonished him.

"Oh, right. Sorry Maura."

At this, Maura flashed Jane a quick smile before going back to work. "She's remarkably well-preserved. The linoleum must have prevented this soil from soaking up any moisture. That's certainly why we are able find bits of her clothes still. Normally wool would deteriorate within a year or so, but these remains have been kept so dry that they're just shy of mummified."

"Can you tell how she died?" asked Jane.

"Nothing leaps out at me. I'll need to…"

"I know, I know," interrupted Jane, the affection in her voice taking away the sting in her words. "You'll need to take her back to the lab." She resumed her own inspection of the bones. "Looks like her right arm was broken."

Coming around to the other side of the body to have a look, Maura said, "Compound fracture to the right distal radius and ulna, most likely caused by a fall from a height of seven or eight feet. It's an old injury, based on the progress of the healing. It probably happened about three years before she died."

There was a gasp from nearby, and they both looked up to see that Sally had her hand clapped over her mouth, and her eyes were swimming with tears. "Charlotte broke her right arm in that exact spot," she said. "She fell off a tree in her backyard when we were twelve. She showed me her x-rays. I… I drew a unicorn on her cast." She blinked and the tears spilled over. "God, it's really her. She's really gone."

Jane felt incredibly sad. She caught Frost's eye and jerked her head in Sally's direction. Picking up on what she was saying, he put his arm around Sally's shoulders and said, "Hey, why don't we go get some air, okay? Henry can record for you, right Henry?"

"Of course," said Henry sympathetically. He reached out and squeezed Sally's hand. "Don't worry. I've got this. Take as long as you need."

Once Frost and Sally had gone Jane looked back at Maura and met her green eyes, and she could tell Maura was sad, too. "We'll find out who did this, Jane," she said softly.

"I know we will, Maur."


	5. S2E3 - The Investigation

_About an hour after we found Charlotte, I found myself alone in the break room with Detective Rizzoli. I was so very sad, and I was thinking about all the things I should have said and done with Charlotte before the chance had been lost forever. I was filled with regret. _

_I was sitting in the break room alone, ostensibly working but mostly just sitting there thinking, and Detective Rizzoli walked in to get a cup of coffee. I flipped on my recorder when she came in the room and struck up an unprompted conversation with me._

"_You hiding in here?"_

"_No, just working on my episode narration for… You know."_

"_Finding the body." _

_At this point Detective Rizzoli walks over to the table and sits across from me, and she uses this detective skill where she kind of forces you to make eye contact. It's pretty unnerving in most contexts, but in this one it's oddly bolstering. And then she says the last thing I would have expected her to say._

"_Don't beat yourself up about all the things you never got to do or say with Charlotte. That way brings only madness. You couldn't have known she would be murdered, alright? Instead you should focus on helping us figure out what happened. I promise it will help."_

"_Wow. How did you know what I was thinking?"_

"_It's what I would be thinking if I were you."_

_And then she gets up, squeezes my shoulder, and leaves. Afterwards I felt a thousand times better than I did before. Somehow the fact that I was so easy to read was oddly comforting. It made me feel human and normal, like I was following a path that countless others have already walked._

_And if that was true, then Detective Rizzoli was probably also right about the other thing she'd said: Finding Charlotte's killer would help._

_So I buckled down and went back to work._

-_-_An excerpt from _To Charlotte, With Love_ – S2E3: The Investigation

* * *

Maura assured everyone that the dental records would be sufficient to identify the remains considering their nearly pristine condition, but she also said the process would take a few hours. The good news was that she already had access to Charlotte's dental records, which would greatly expedite the process. They had been collected and put in her file shortly after she'd gone missing, just in case.

Even though they didn't know for sure they had the right girl, Jane and her two teammates began to operate under the assumption that the bones belonged to Charlotte. For Jane, Sally's recognition of the broken arm was more than enough to convince her.

After there was nothing left for the detectives to do at the high school, they took the podcasters with them back to the precinct and began to attack the case in earnest. The podcasters sat in awe as the three of them bounced ideas off one another as though they were playing a high speed 3-man game of tennis.

"Obviously our suspect is Gary Hopkins, the janitor. The bones were in his office, most likely buried with help from his jackhammer," said Frost.

"Circumstantial," clipped Jane. "It's not enough probable cause to make an arrest. We could definitely pull him in for questioning though."

"We're never going to get much by way of physical evidence in a case this old, so we're going to need solid testimonials," said Korsak. "We'll need character witnesses about Hopkins. We need to establish he's capable of killing a fifteen year old girl."

"A fifteen year old girl who'd had lunch with him that same day," added Frost.

His comment made Jane remember her thoughts while she'd been listening to the podcast the night before. "Can you run a background check on Rich Dunbar?" Jane asked Frost.

"I already did last night," he answered, pulling the results up on the screen. "He had a pretty impressive record for someone barely over the age of 25. He died of a heroin overdose about three years ago. He had possession and dealing charges for most of the good stuff—meth, coke, MDMA, ecstasy, heroin."

"An equal opportunity addict," said Jane wryly. "Kids today are so open-minded."

"Any history of violence?" asked Korsak.

Frost shook his head. "None. By all accounts he was a pretty good guy for a drug addict. No theft or B&E either. All the drugs he bought, he paid for with honest money."

"Yeah he sounds like a real stand-up guy," said Jane.

"How the hell is that possible?" wondered Korsak, looking at his profile. "He never had a single job."

For the first time, Sally spoke up. "Robbie," she said. "Robbie sent him a monthly income, and then Rich would turn it in to more money by haggling and selling whatever drugs he wasn't using at the time."

"How does Robbie have money?" asked Frost.

"You heard the podcast. The guy's a genius," said Sally. "He got a job right out of college at Lockheed Martin. He's some kind of super-specialized engineer. Henry and I think he probably makes six figures, easy."

"Damn," said Korsak. "Frost, run a background check on him too, will you? Might as well cover our bases."

"You got it," Frost replied, and he began clicking away on his keyboard. After a moment, he said: "He's clean. Solid work history with gradually increasing salaries… He was even making decent money doing freelance work while he was still in college. Yeah, he's well above six figures now. _Damn!_ I'm in the wrong business."

"We definitely need to contact him as a character witness for Hopkins. He's our only living link between the suspect and the victim," said Jane. She had noticed that the telephone number and address on file for Robbie Dunbar had not been updated since before the year he'd graduated high school, and she knew for a fact that the area of Southie where the address was located had since been converted to a shopping center. If Robbie had since become wealthy, he might be difficult to find. In Jane's experience, if he hadn't bothered to put himself on the record since high school then that was probably intentional. It could take weeks to track him down, especially if his work with Lockheed Martin had any aspect of secrecy about it, and with a company in the defense business it often did. Luckily, they had another option available to help them find this guy. Turning to the podcasters, she said, "Sally, do you guys have current contact info for Robbie?"

"We text each other Game of Thrones memes all the time," said Sally. "I think I can get you an audience."

Jane smirked. There were definite perks to having the reporters hanging around.

"What's this gap in his college transcript?" asked Korsak, pointing at the screen with his pinky. "It looks like he skipped spring semester in his second year."

Jane made a _tsk-tsk _noise. "Someone didn't listen to your podcast, Sally. Are you insulted?"

"Deeply," drawled Sally.

"If you had listened, you would know he suffered a mental breakdown after his mother died and spent some time in a mental health facility," explained Frost. "Man, you need to listen to the podcast."

Korsak had the good grace to look ashamed. "I'm sorry, I was distracted. Lulu had her litter last night."

This threw them all off track. Jane and Frost cheered excitedly. "Why didn't you say anything?" said Jane.

For reply, Korsak gestured at the case board. "We're working a case."

"Dude, we're always working a case," said Frost. "You got pics?"

Looking at the photos of Korsak's new puppies effectively ended the case work for a few minutes, and as soon as Jane wasn't thinking about Charlotte, she was thinking about Maura. When she felt she'd sufficiently cooed at the dogs, she said, "I'm gonna head down to the morgue and see if Maura has anything yet." When Frost snickered at her, she added, "Oh, grow up." On her way out she noticed that Sally was scribbling furiously in her little notepad. "Whatcha writing?" she asked innocently, once again trying to stick her nose in Sally's business.

"I'm working on how I'm going to describe what just happened between you three."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, one moment Henry and I are sitting here with our heads spinning listening to you take 30 minutes to get information it took us the better part of a year to get, and the next moment you're looking at pictures of puppies on Sergeant Korsak's phone." She shook her head, not looking away from her notepad. "You three are astounding."

"Hear that, guys?" said Frost arrogantly. "_Astounding._"

Jane laughed and held up her hand in a wave as she continued on her way downstairs.

Outside the morgue, she paused for a moment to take in the sight of Maura in her scrubs, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. She had an easy, casual beauty that Jane found familiar in a way that was endlessly comforting, and Jane wanted to barge right in and kiss the living daylights out of her. The desire was so intense that she actually lifted her foot to take the first step towards the doors, but then she stopped herself. _I'm vulnerable after finding Charlotte, and I'm overreacting by attaching myself to Maura._ The rational part of her brain knew that theory could only be partially correct because wanting to kiss the living daylights out of Maura was an everyday occurrence. But still, she was unusually defenseless at the moment, and it was a bad idea to talk to Maura in this state. She would run the risk of falling apart, and there was still work to be done. She turned around to go back to the elevator.

But she had barely gone five steps when she heard the doors open and Maura's voice floated down the hallway, making the hairs on the back of Jane's neck stand up. "Jane, where are you going?"

Jane stopped dead in her tracks, stiffening. Then she took a deep breath and turned around to look at Maura. It was like staring directly at the sun. "Back upstairs," she said evenly.

"You were going to leave without talking to me?" Maura looked hurt, and Jane felt it in her own gut.

"Maura, I'm begging you. Let me walk away, alright? It was a mistake for me to come down here like this. I can't be held responsible for what would happen if I was alone with you."

The hurt disappeared, and in its place there came a gentle understanding. Maura knew everything there was to know about Jane, and she knew exactly what was going on in that beautiful mind. Jane was hurting. She was disappointed. She was vulnerable. Maura wanted to help, wanted to take her in to her arms and comfort her and love her, but she knew it wasn't an option at work. So instead she asked: "Are you coming over later?"

"I basically never intend to sleep without you again, so yeah," said Jane, and she resumed her walk towards the elevator. She got on one and as the doors slid closed, she called out, "Text me when you have an ID or a cause of death, you magnificent creature, you."

Maura swiped her card to re-enter the morgue and let the door shut behind her before leaning back against it. _There is no reasonable explanation for how I could possibly be this lucky. _After several minutes of wrestling her heart back in to a normal rhythm, she returned to the autopsy table where she had been carefully laying out the skeleton like she was assembling a puzzle. It was an easy task for someone of her intellect and experience, and it was mundane in a way that left her plenty of mental resources to mull on the subject of luck.

It was such a tricky, fickle thing. Maura had never considered herself a lucky woman, especially where romance was concerned. Up until the moment Jane had kissed her for the first time she'd always thought all her relationships had failed because she had picked the wrong partner or made stupid mistakes due to her general social ineptitude, but now she wondered if it didn't all come down to luck in the end.

She didn't feel like she done anything special to make Jane Rizzoli love her. They'd simply met, liked each other, and then eventually loved each other. It wasn't like her past romances where she'd had to make choices or take actions to pursue or maintain the relationship. With Jane it was easy because there was no question of whether or not their association with one another would end. Even if they had never become a romantic couple, it would have been understood that their friendship was for life. No other relationship had ever been like that for Maura. With all the men in her lives, she'd had to work to maintain the level of affection necessary to generate enough interest for both parties involved to continue wanting to see each other. But with Jane, affection was their bread and butter. It was the current that ran through every interaction. They _liked_ one another, and that was their simple truth.

In any case, it certainly made Maura feel better to imagine that it wasn't her own poor judgement in partners or social awkwardness that had poisoned her past relationships and instead consider the possibility it was the work of some unfathomable cosmic force. Maura had never been one to believe in that sort of thing, but the mental crutch served to alleviate the dull pain of years of embarrassment over failed relationships.

Jane sometimes asked Maura to intentionally lie to her if the truth was too unsavory to think about. It seemed that Maura's natural aversion to lying could be circumvented as long as the recipient of her falsehood understood that a falsehood was being uttered. She could lie to Jane, as long as Jane wanted her to lie.

Since Maura wanted to believe that luck and luck alone had led her to Jane, she decided to use the same technique on herself now. What was the point in wondering anymore, anyway? Why should she bother fretting over years of social missteps she'd made with men who had ultimately left her? It didn't matter now. Not now that she'd managed to find the only person in the entire world who would ever be right for her.

The door to the morgue opened and Maura looked up. "Hello Frankie," she said, her brain still a million miles away.

"Hey Maur. You get the tox screens back on my guy yet?"

"Yes, Susie left them on the counter for you there. He died from arsenic poisoning." She nodded towards the island where she kept her laptop, and Frankie went over to flip through the folder of lab test results on his murder victim.

"Is that the podcast kid?" he asked once he'd finished scanning the information. He tossed the file back on the counter and came over to stand on the other side of the metal autopsy table just as his sister had done so many times over the years, watching as Maura carefully placed each bone of its right hand in its proper place.

"It's the remains we found in the high school that Charlotte Turner attended, but I can't say for certain it's her until the lab finishes analyzing the dental records."

"Sure, that sounds reasonable," said Frankie. "I bet people bury spooky skeletons under that janitor's office all the time."

Maura laughed and shook her head. "You are your sister's brother."

"Speaking of my sister, I heard Officer Rodriguez saying she saw you two makin' out in the bathroom this morning."

The proximal phalange in Maura's hand fell to the ground with a clatter. "Oh, _shoot!_" she said and hastily bent down to pick it up. She didn't come back up though, instead remaining squatted on the floor as though she wanted to hide under the autopsy table. Blood was rushing in her ears so loudly she could barely make out the sound of Frankie's laughter.

He came around the table and gently took her elbow, guiding her back to her full height. "I'm sorry, Maura. I couldn't resist."

Not meeting his eyes, Maura said, "It's fine. I suppose you'd have to hear about it eventually. It's not necessarily how I'd imagined this would come out—no pun intended—but if you can be so cavalier about the subject matter of the rumor you heard then it must mean you're not about to level any unpleasantness my way." She knew she was being wordy, but she couldn't help it. She and Jane hadn't even had the opportunity to talk about how to tell people what was happening between them, and yet somehow everyone was immediately finding them out.

"It wasn't a rumor, it was an eyewitness report," said Frankie. "But why the hell would I be unpleasant? Because you're a chick? I don't see why that makes any difference. You're good for each other. Nothing wrong with that."

There could be no mistaking the sincerity in his voice, and Maura found it easy let her nervousness go. After all, Frankie was family. It wasn't as though they were strangers. Now she felt able to look Frankie in the eye, and when she did, he smiled kindly at her. "Thank you, Frankie. I mean it. I'd hate it if this were to drive a wedge between us. Jane isn't the only Rizzoli I love."

"Yeah, but you love her the most, right?"

"You have no idea," replied Maura honestly.

Frankie laughed and slung his arm around her. "I think I got a pretty good idea." He kissed the top of her head and then released her, retreating back a little bit so she could continue her work on the skeleton. Feeling like he still wanted to have a little more fun with her, he abruptly asked: "So when are you gonna make an honest woman out of her?"

But this time Maura wasn't the least bit phased. Frankie hadn't lied about being fine with Maura and Jane's relationship, and so Maura wouldn't lie about the relationship itself. She owed him that much. "Soon, I'd imagine," she replied as she lined up the skeleton's metacarpal of the right thumb. "We haven't had a chance to discuss it yet, but your mother wants grandchildren and we are both approaching the end of that biological window."

When she looked up at Frankie, his eyes were wide and his mouth was open slightly. "Wait, are you serious?"

Straightening up to give him her attention again, she said, "Of course. I love Jane, Frankie. I have for a very long time. Now that I've got her, I'm not letting her get away." She shook her head and pulled off her gloves, walking over to her computer to check and see if the lab had emailed her any updates on the pending ID, but mostly just moving because she was growing agitated. "I watched idiotic man after idiotic man treat her terribly for years, all the while wondering how they could be so stupid not to realize how lucky they were that Jane was giving them the time of day. But I'm not stupid. I am well aware of how fortunate I am."

"Good," said Frankie. "That means I can skip the whole 'Don't You Dare Hurt My Sister' talk."

"Yes, you can. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to finish up here. The lab's just confirmed that these are the remains of Charlotte Turner, and Jane's going to absolutely insufferable until I provide her with a cause of death."

"You want me to let her know?"

But Maura had already picked up her phone to text Jane and wasn't listening. Frankie could tell Jane replied immediately because then Maura was smiling at her phone in the way she only ever smiled at Jane. She didn't even notice when he left the room, even though he loudly shouted: "BYE MAURA!"

Two floors above her, Jane and Korsak were going over some case files while Frost was giving the podcasters a tour of the station. Jane's phone vibrated and she pulled it off its clip. "Maura says the dental records have confirmed that it's Charlotte we found. She doesn't have a cause of death yet though. Also Frankie knows we were making out in the ladies room earlier, so that probably means the whole precinct knows. That's convenient. I was planning to take out an ad in the quarterly newsletter, but this works too."

"I can't believe you're being so blasé about this," said Korsak. "I always thought it would be a big drama when you and the doc finally figured it out."

"I'm too old for drama. All I want is to be happy, and I can't be happy without her." Leaning forward and lowering her voice so she wouldn't be overheard, she asked, "Vince, it doesn't bother you, does it?"

"Hell no," he replied, his tone indicating that he was offended that she'd even asked.

"Good. Thanks, pal." She reached over and slapped his shoulder affectionately just as Frost and their guests returned. "Just in time. I'm sorry to tell you this, but Maura sent word that the remains are definitely Charlotte."

Sally looked sad, but she put on a brave face and said, "Well, we were expecting as much. What's the next step, Detectives?"

Getting to her feet, Jane said: "Now we notify the family."


	6. S2E4 - The Failure of the BPD

**Author's Notes: **Tomorrow is my birthday, so to celebrate here's my favorite chapter of this story so far. If you want to get me a present, leave a review! They really keep me going and I appreciate every one.

* * *

_One thing people ask me a lot is if I think the BPD did a bad job on Charlotte's case. And I guess the answer, sadly, is yes. How many cold case crimes have you heard about where you can't believe the things the police missed? To a certain extent, this is one of those cases._

_But at the same time, there are things in the private case file that I'm not at liberty to share here that vindicate the BPD, at least a little. I won't be able to share those things until after the case is officially closed, and that won't happen until after the end of season two of this podcast when all court proceedings have completed. But I promise to make a bonus episode when that information becomes public, and Detective Rizzoli has even agreed to an interview on the subject when the time comes._

_So for now, the BPD of ten years ago will look really bad. And the BPD of today will look absolutely incredible._

-An excerpt from _To Charlotte, With Love_ – S2E4: The Failure of the BPD

* * *

Jane and Frost hung back on the porch and let Sally take the lead, her audio equipment reflecting the mid-afternoon sunlight. It made the most sense to do it this way because Sally had a personal relationship with Charlotte's mother Stephanie, both from being best friends with her daughter in her childhood, and from the last year she'd spent working on the podcast. The two detectives waited patiently as she set her shoulders, took a deep breath, and prepared herself for what was about to happen. Then she rang the doorbell.

The woman who answered looked familiar to Jane, but she realized at once that it was because she had spent the last several days looking at photographs of Charlotte Turner, and the apple didn't fall far from the tree. Stephanie Turner had the same blonde hair, the same perky nose, and the same crystal blue eyes. She smiled when she saw Sally on her doorstep, but the smile dropped when she noticed Jane and Frost.

"Hey Steph," said Sally. "These are Detectives Jane Rizzoli and Barry Frost from Boston Homicide. May we come inside and talk to you?"

"Of course," said Stephanie, and she stood back and let the three of them in. "Can I get you some iced tea?"

"No, thank you," said Jane, her voice calm and compassionate. "Do you have some place we can sit down and talk?"

"Yes, right through here."

They sat in her living room, a bright area with plenty of sunlight streaming in and pleasantly decorated for the purpose of entertaining guests. And yet Jane couldn't help but think there was something hollow about this room. It felt the way Maura's living room had felt the first time she'd ever visited—cool and detached, more like a museum than a home. There were photographs on Stephanie's wall, but none of them were personal. Instead they were pictures taken by artists and had no connection to Stephanie Turner's reality. This was the home of a woman who had been alone for ten years.

The BPD's case file on Charlotte had informed Jane that Stephanie's alibi was airtight. She had been on a plane returning from a business trip to California at the time of Charlotte's disappearance. But after seeing this home, Jane would have ruled her out as a suspect even if her whereabouts at the time of the murder had placed her at the school. Sadness this deep and long-lasting was impossible to fake.

"Ms. Turner, I'm so sorry to have to tell you this, but your daughter is dead," said Jane softly. "We found her body this morning. We believe she probably died the day she went missing."

For a long time, Stephanie Turner sat wordlessly on the sofa and looked down at her hands in her lap, taking slow, measured breaths. Sally, who was sitting very close by her side to offer her support, reached over and took her hands, and this seemed to bring Stephanie back to the conversation. When she did speak, she could only manage one word and her voice was thick with barely-restrained tears. "Where…?"

"We can't go in to specifics at this time because the investigation is on-going, but I can tell you that we believe she never left the high school that day."

"Just like Sally thought," rasped Stephanie.

"Yes," replied Jane with a little smile at Sally, who was still holding Stephanie's hands tightly. "Actually the BPD didn't find your daughter. Sally and her producer Henry did. We were following up on her tip."

Raising her eyes, Stephanie looked at Sally and whispered, "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Sally replied, just as quietly.

The broken woman took a long moment to compose herself, and Jane felt nothing but admiration for the way she took a deep breath and forced herself to carry on the conversation. "How did it happen?" Stephanie asked.

"The medical examiner hasn't been able to determine the cause of death yet, but we've got one of the best forensics teams in the country. I promise you, we will figure out exactly what happened to her."

"Hopefully this time it doesn't take you ten years," said Stephanie bitterly. When Jane opened her mouth to reply, she held up a hand. "No, wait. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I know it's not your fault."

"Maybe it's not personally my fault, but the BPD did let you down, Ms. Turner," said Jane candidly. "I'm not saying my predecessors didn't do all they could to find your daughter, but clearly there were things that Sally here thought of that we never did. I've looked at the case file, and we did follow every lead we had at the time. Once this investigation is officially closed that file will become public record, and I encourage you to look for yourself once that happens. And when you do, I'll be happy to come back here and talk more specifically with you about everything we've done with your case over the years. I'll leave you my business card, and you can call me any time, alright?"

"Alright," said Stephanie, thinking of all the detectives over the years who had told her basically the same thing, and the stack of business cards she'd collected from them that she kept in a drawer upstairs. She knew by the sympathetic look in Detective Rizzoli's eyes that she understood that the two of them would find no common ground today. And Jane couldn't blame her. After all, the BPD had barely done anything for Stephanie Turner. Sally Stark had done it all. "Do you need me to answer any questions?" asked Stephanie, impatient for the detectives to leave her home. "Don't you have a suspect you want to ask me about?"

"We have a suspect, but we don't need to ask you any questions," Jane said. "We think we're close to being able to make an arrest without your assistance."

"Good," said Stephanie, rising from her seat. "I'll show you out, then. And don't bother contacting my ex-husband. I'll tell him myself."

"Alright. But please don't spread this information around just yet. Secrecy is an important aspect of an open investigation, so we're counting on your discretion in this matter. We'll give a press conference when we're ready for the public to know what we found," said Jane. They went out to the front porch, where Jane and Frost paused again. "Ms. Turner, we are very sorry for your loss, and we promise we're going to everything we possibly can to find out what happened to Charlotte. We'll be in touch." Then they continued down the steps towards the car.

They waited by the unmarked cruiser while Sally hugged a sobbing Stephanie Turner goodbye on the front porch. "Oh god, please hurry up," Jane groaned in a voice soft enough for only Frost to hear. "If I don't see Maura soon I think I'm going to look a lot like Stephanie Turner."

Frost affectionately bumped her shoulder with his. "You're a good detective, Jane," he said, instantly discerning the source of her disquiet. He, too, was upset by the way the BPD had failed Charlotte Turner and her family.

Her cell phone chimed and her heart leapt when she saw the incoming text was from Maura. "Please come down to my office when you get back to the station. I don't have a cause of death but I really want to see you."

"Gross," said Frost, unabashedly reading over her shoulder.

"Jealous," Jane fired back. The combination of the text and the friendly exchange with Frost served to brighten her mood considerably.

Sally returned to the cruiser, although Jane could tell she would much rather have stayed with Stephanie. But she was a dedicated journalist and she was here to tell a story, so she climbed in to the back of the car without complaint. "How do you think that went, Detective Rizzoli?" she asked once they were on their way back to the station, and Jane could tell from her tone that she was recording the conversation.

Jane had been surprised to discover she actually didn't mind having someone following her around and recording her. She was proud of the work she did, and she was honorable about how she did it, so therefore she had nothing to hide. And in a case like this, where at its core it was a demonstration of the failings of police work, it was helpful to answer the biting and difficult questions that Sally often asked. They forced Jane to think critically about the actions she was taking, and they kept her focused on the path in front of her.

"About as well as can be expected," Jane replied grimly. "It could have been a lot worse."

"How so?"

"We could have needed to ask her questions for the purpose of our investigation. Or, worse yet, she could have been a suspect. It's very difficult to break tragic news of a murder to someone who may or may not have done it. We have to be compassionate but also firm, just in case someone is or is not guilty. If they didn't do it and you grill them like they did, you're an asshole. But if they did do it and you keep the gloves on with 'em, you're naïve."

"I understand. So since you know Steph didn't do it, you didn't have to worry about being firm."

"Exactly. But at the same time, in this situation there was the added caveat of having to both apologize and not apologize for the past decade. I only joined this investigation a few days ago, but she joined it ten years ago. It messes with the balance of power. I do feel bad about how this has dragged on for her, but I'm confident that we can solve this." Jane met Sally's eyes briefly in the rearview mirror. "Next time you talk to Steph Turner, you make sure she knows I'm serious about wanting her to call me, alright? I'm no deadbeat detective. And you let her know that once we've got this thing locked down I'll be stopping by again, and next time I'll say yes when she offers me iced tea."

A bright smile came over Sally's face. "I'll tell her," she promised.

Jane broke off from Frost and Sally at the elevators, intent on heading down to see Maura. She stalked down the hall of the basement with singular purpose, and when she entered Maura's office she didn't bother to close the door before walking around her desk, pulling her up off her chair, and wrapping her in a warm hug. She wasn't ready to talk about what had happened, and Maura, understanding this, didn't ask her to. Instead they stood silently with their arms around each other for timeless moment. Then Jane drew away and kissed Maura's forehead. "See you tonight," she said roughly before turning and leaving the office.

Maura watched her walk past her office windows, pleased to see that the bounce had returned to her step. She had no doubt that what had just happened would happen many more times over the course of their lives, and the thought filled her with gratitude and anticipation.

The hug lingered with Jane as she made her way back upstairs, and by the time she entered the bullpen she felt completely recharged, re-centered, and full of energy. _How did I ever do this job without being able to do that before?_

She sat down at her desk and Frost studied her carefully. "You good, partner?"

"Never better," she said honestly. "Look sharp, my friend, we've got a case to crack."

"Yeah, we do. And I've got some ideas."

"Let's hear it, newbie."

Rolling his eyes at the nickname, Frost began: "I think we're all in agreement that Charlotte never left the school grounds that day. Here are the blueprints Sally pulled from the public library." He stood and pinned the blueprints to the case board, then remained standing to point at the map. Jane, Korsak, Sally and Henry were all watching with rapt attention. "Here's where the last eyewitness saw her go." He took out a pen and drew a star on a side entrance of the school near the baseball diamond. "And for reference, here's the janitor's office." He put an X on the office.

"They're on almost completely opposite sides of the school," said Jane, frowning.

"Right. Our whole case relies on us being able to figure out how Charlotte got from here," he tapped on the star, "to here." He tapped on the X.

"Well, when you put it that way, that doesn't sound so hard," said Korsak. "I like it. Do we know if Hopkins kept any maintenance logs or anything like that? It would be great if we could track his movements that day."

"Naw, that would be too easy," said Frost. "Detectives asked around the school but no one knows what Hopkins was up to after school that day. We don't even know if he was there."

"Okay, so we'll have to find something that could place him at the school on the day of the murder," said Korsak. "Let's talk to his family and his buddies, see if we can find out what kind of schedule he usually kept."

But something about this didn't sit right with Jane. She was receiving, as Maura called it, an intuition from her gastro-intestinal system. "Hold on, stop-stop-stop," she said suddenly, waving her hands to halt their conversation. "We can't do this. We can't develop tunnel vision for Hopkins. That's how this case went cold in the first place. Every detective until Sally was so focused on the fact that Charlotte was seen _leaving_ the school that they never bothered investigating the school with any seriousness."

Frost frowned at her. "Jane, we found her body in his office. The guy owned a jackhammer."

"Thank you, Frost. I appreciate the refresher," she replied sarcastically. "I know all that. And I know it sounds crazy. But just… humor me, okay? The BPD has been failing Stephanie Turner for 10 years and I really think we owe it to her to do this investigation properly. Let's put Hopkins aside for now and focus on Charlotte." She rounded on Sally. "What do you know about Charlotte's routine?"

The abrupt shift in detective-mode Jane's attention to her threw Sally off momentarily. She'd observed this Jane Rizzoli before, but this was the first time she'd been on the receiving end of it. "Not much," she admitted, wishing she could have said something else. "It's not something we've really looked at. We were…" She looked aghast. "We were mostly focused on Hopkins, too."

"See that?" said Jane warmly. "It happens to the best of us." She gave Sally a wink and turned back to the other detectives. "I really think this should be our focus. My gut's telling me it's the right thing to do. Let's see if we can find out how she got from that star to that X. And if the path between those two places leads us to Hopkins, so be it. But we have to start with Charlotte."

Frost and Korsak exchanged glances, and then Korsak said, "Alright." Because he knew from experience that Jane's intuition was more reliable than most people's facts.

Now that their direction had been established, they picked up on the thread and ran with it. "If we're going to look at Charlotte, that means we'll need Stephanie Turner after all," said Frost. "Sally, I think you should handle that."

A mix of delight, excitement, and surprise came over Sally's face, but she didn't show a single sign of fear or uncertainty, and Jane's respect for her doubled. Not everyone would respond that way to being asked to play a crucial role in the official police investigation of a murder. "Me?" Sally asked Frost. "Really?"

"Absolutely," he said. "I'll go with you, of course, but I think it's best if we tell you exactly what we need to know and let you do the talking."

"Why don't you have Detective Rizzoli do it?" Sally asked bluntly. It was the type of journalistic question that Jane had come to expect from her.

"Because she doesn't like me," said Jane. "Did you notice that Frost didn't say a single word the whole time we were there?"

"Yes, I did."

"That was intentional," said Frost. "We wanted there to be an opportunity for dialogue with at least one of us, and it can't be the one who breaks the news that her daughter is dead. You can't exactly form a bond that way. So instead I tagged along, but I didn't give Ms. Turner the chance to form an opinion one way or another."

Sally looked legitimately impressed. "That's… Brilliant."

"We are, aren't we?" said Jane, batting her eyelashes at Sally.

"Okay, well, as long as Detective Frost is coming with me, I'll do it," said Sally. "Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity. I was hoping there would be some way for me to help."

"You found the damn body, woman," said Jane incredulously. "What more do you want to do, put the killer in handcuffs?"

Sally's eyes lit up. "Could I?"

"No," said Jane, Frost, and Korsak simultaneously.

For the rest of the work day they prepped Sally for her job. They even gave her interview tips—things that detectives did when talking to people who are relevant to cases to help them get to the truth. It was actually quite fun. They did role plays for scenarios she might encounter, and they frequently ended in the whole group of them collapsing in to laughter.

After one such occasion, Sally commented: "I don't know how I feel about knowing that the people responsible for the integrity of the thin blue line are sitting around at their desks cracking jokes."

A warm hand fell on Jane's shoulder from behind her, and a beloved voice said: "Yes, but Jane would poke her eyes out with a scalpel if she didn't make jokes."

Jane grinned and let her head fall back against Maura's stomach, looking up at her affectionately. "Hey," she said. "Quitting time?"

"It's a little early. You can finish up what you were working on. I don't mind waiting."

Rising from her chair and grabbing her blazer off the back of it, Jane said, "You heard the lady. It's quitting time. Have a good night."

"_Whipped_," muttered Frost out of the corner of his mouth.

"_Jealous_," replied Jane in the same way.

As they walked out of the bullpen Jane put her hand on the small of Maura's back in a completely unconscious, possessive, and protective gesture, and Maura glowed with pleasure. Little things like that made it so easy for her to believe that she was luckiest woman in the whole world.

At Maura's house Jane sat at the island with a beer watching Maura cook dinner and told her about the visit with Stephanie Turner. Afterwards, Maura looked at her carefully as though trying to read her mind. "What?" Jane asked, leaning away from Maura's scrutiny. "Something on my face?"

"I'm trying to figure out if you're more upset about finding Charlotte's body or the terrible job the BPD did on her case," replied Maura brusquely.

"Damn, Dr. Isles," said Jane, taking a swig of her beer, "you are good."

"I know I am. So which is it?"

"I'm sad about Charlotte. Of course I am. But you're right. I'm definitely having trouble defending Boston's finest on this one. How is it possible that it took a couple of independent journalists to find a girl who was hidden exactly where she went missing the whole time?"

Leaning against the counter with her glass of wine, Maura said, "You read the case file. You tell me. What went wrong?"

"Maur, I don't feel comfortable criticizing the work of the detectives on a case I wasn't assigned to."

"You're assigned to it now, though," Maura pointed out. "Alright, fine. Let me put it this way, then: What would you have done if it had been your case from the beginning?"

"It's hard to say for sure because I don't generally work missing persons cases. Usually by the time I get them it's definitely a homicide."

"Yes, well, I don't generally work on the living but I still saved Frankie, didn't I?"

"Hell yeah you did," said Jane.

"So what would you have done in Charlotte's case?"

Picking at the label on her beer, Jane hesitated. But when she started speaking, it was obvious to Maura that Jane had been thinking about this very topic for quite some time already, since long before Maura had asked. She could tell by the way Jane burst out: "They didn't even set up a perimeter, Maura!" She got off her seat and began pacing back and forth. "Charlotte's father reported her missing about two hours after she was last seen. Uniforms showed up and started taking statements, but people were coming and going the whole time! Nobody grabbed her friends, nobody grabbed the softball coach, and they didn't even get the name of the person who was the last one to see her! All we know was that it was a student, and then the uniform said, '_Great, thanks for the info, bye bye now_.' I mean, how sloppy can you be? TJ could have done a better job securing the crime scene. And then they canvassed the neighborhood for a few hours, and then they called it quits until the morning!"

Maura was not a cop, but even she was appalled. "Is this all true?"

"Every word. But don't get me wrong, they did do some things right. They pulled all the CCTV footage right away. They put it out to the media, and that made everyone in the city look for her. If she'd been on the streets of Boston, she would have been found. But she wasn't. And they did look at everyone close to her. They looked at Hopkins, at the father, at her friends… And from what I can tell, that work was all solid. Really, the only part they bungled was the beginning. But unfortunately, that's the most important part of any investigation."

The timer on the oven went off and Maura went to pull the veggie casserole out. Jane had agreed to the meal because it was so smothered in cheese that it could hardly be considered healthy, and Maura had agreed because whatever Jane wanted, Jane got.

"This turned out perfectly," said Maura, leaning over to check the cook book she had laying open on the counter. "Now the recipe says we let it cool for fifteen to twenty minutes." It smelled delicious, and Jane wandered over to take a closer look, amused to see Maura set the oven timer for 17 and a half minutes. She wrapped her arms around Maura from behind as she examined the dish, and Maura sighed happily as she leaned back against her. "I think this is my new favorite thing," she said.

"What, casserole?"

"When you hold me like this," clarified Maura.

"It doesn't make you feel smothered?"

"Not at all."

Jane buried her face in Maura's hair, breathing her in. She smelled a lot better than the casserole. "How bout now?"

"Still fine."

Jane ducked down further, nuzzling Maura's neck before placing slow, deliberate kisses there. "Now?"

Maura tilted her head to give Jane better access. "I admit, I'm having a little trouble breathing now." She could feel Jane's smile against her skin. It made her shiver with pleasure. "I don't know if that technically counts as smothering, though. Smothering has a negative connotation, but this is…"

Now Jane was smiling even bigger. "Positive?"

"Very," Maura breathed, and she turned her head to meet Jane's lips over her shoulder. Before she knew it, Jane had spun her around, grabbed her by the waist, lifted her up, and set her down on the kitchen counter. Maura laughed against her lips. "Why do you do that?" she asked, draping her arms over Jane's shoulders.

"Kiss you? Gosh, Maura, I just don't know."

Ignoring this, Maura said, "Pick me up. That's two times now you've done it."

"You don't like it?"

"Oh, I like it," Maura assured her. "I was just wondering why you do it."

Jane pulled back and looked at her, considering her answer. "Because I'm happy," she said simply.

"I see. So it's a physical outlet for an emotional upsurge that you feel the necessity to express but perhaps can't find the appropriate words to do so."

"I know the words for it, but saying them would mean I'd have to stop kissing you. Picking you up works a lot better."

When Jane leaned in to kiss her again, Maura stopped her by putting a finger on her lips. "Jane," she said softly. "Tell me. I want to hear you say it."

With an indulgent smile, Jane said: "I love you, Maura." Before Maura could reply, she kissed her. Afterwards she said, "Okay, your turn. Go."

"I love you too, Jane."


	7. S2E5 - The Confession

_There are all kinds of reasons why a case might go cold. One of the major factors in the solvability of any case is whether or not a body has been found. These are two distinctly different kinds of cases: Ones with a body, and ones with no body. _

_It is incredibly rare to solve a case and get a murder conviction without a body. That's part of the reason why Charlotte's case went cold. The BPD didn't know which of those two types of cases they were working. Was it a missing persons, or was it a homicide?_

_And once the body was found, the case worked towards its conclusion at breakneck speed. It took only 7 days to close the case after finding Charlotte's body. And that's not uncommon. The body is the most important piece of evidence you can have._

_What _was_ uncommon was all the twists and turns the case took as those seven days went by._

\- An excerpt from _To Charlotte, With Love_ – S2E5: The Confession

* * *

Jane, Korsak and Henry drove to Beacon Hill to meet Robbie Dunbar at his condo first thing in the morning. On the drive over they decided not to ask any questions about Hopkins this visit. In the interest of keeping with Jane's plan, they didn't want to let on that they had a prime suspect already. Instead they would ask Dunbar general questions about Charlotte, and then have the uniforms bring in Hopkins that afternoon. Depending on how that questioning went, they would adjust the course of their investigation and re-interview Dunbar as needed.

They arrived at Robbie Dunbar's Beacon Hill condo and rang the doorbell. When he answered the front door Jane immediately formed an impression of a man who had once been poor but had then suddenly come in to a lot of money at a very young age.

Maura had always had money, and it showed in her demeanor. She was high-class, prim and proper. The easiest way to tell that she was loaded was to look at her outfits. Although Jane was no fashion expert by any stretch of the imagination, she knew that most women did not casually wear Couture on a daily basis—especially not when their job was to dissect decomposing bodies.

But still, the way Maura displayed her wealth and the way Robbie Dunbar displayed his could not possibly be more different. Half of the wall in his sitting room was taken up by the largest television that Jane had ever seen. The rest of the wall was occupied by autographed posters and photographs of some of his favorite actors, actresses and musicians. Jane spotted Bruce Willis, Will Smith, Patrick Stewart, and Tom Hanks right away, and there were others whose faces she knew but she couldn't place their names. Displayed in a shiny glass case was what looked to be an authentic prop sword from _Game of Thrones_.

If Jane had to put a word to the difference between Maura's expensive stuff and Robbie's expensive stuff, it would be _utility_. Robbie's property was flashy and impressive, but ultimately useless.

They sat in his geeky living room and Korsak and Henry both took out small notepads to jot things down while they talked. "Thank you for agreeing to meet us so early," said Korsak once introductions had been made. "I know it's not easy to take time out of your work day. Henry here tells us you're a busy man."

"I am," said Robbie without a trace of arrogance. He was simply stating a fact. "But I can always make time to talk about Charlotte."

"We're going to ask you a lot of questions you've probably been asked dozens of times before," Jane told him. "But please try to remember as much as you possibly can. What may seem like an insignificant detail to you might end up being essential to the case."

"I'll do the best I can," he replied, squaring his shoulders.

"We appreciate it. I know it was a long time ago." Jane watched Robbie closely, knowing that Korsak would be taking diligent notes and that Henry was also recording the conversation so there was no need for her to use her own note pad. Her attention was much better spent on Robbie. "Can you tell us how you met Charlotte?"

"We were in the same homeroom. My brother and I met her first thing in the morning on the first day of school."

"That's your identical twin brother Rich, right?" asked Korsak

"That's right. He died a few years ago."

"We know. We're very sorry for your loss," said Jane compassionately.

"Thank you. He was… Troubled. In and out of jail, using drugs, that kind of thing."

"I got a brother who was locked up for a while, too," said Jane. "Doesn't mean I love him any less." This was a deliberate tactic on her part. Making a personal connection with an interview subject was a reliable way to gain their trust and make them more likely to talk.

Robbie smiled sadly. "No, I didn't either. It's different, having an identical twin. In a way I felt like I'd lost a big part of myself."

"I can only imagine. So the three of you made friends right away?"

"Almost immediately. If you knew Charlotte, you'd understand. You can ask Sally. She was warm and friendly. We felt lucky to be her friends."

"What kinds of things did the three of you like to do together?" asked Korsak.

Robbie raised his eyebrows at the question. "That's a new one, I think."

"We're trying to get a picture of the life Charlotte had. We think it might help us figure out where she went." Jane sent a silent thank you to whoever had decided that police officers were allowed to lie. She didn't want to tell Robbie that Charlotte had already been found. It wasn't in her best interest to share that right now.

"That makes sense I guess," said Robbie. He paused and considered his answer. "We did all the normal kids' stuff, you know? We saw movies, went roller blading, went exploring, that kind of thing. And we liked to play softball."

"Charlotte was on the school team, right?" asked Jane. When he nodded, she continued, "Do you remember what position she played?"

"Pitcher," answered Robbie.

"Was she any good?" asked Jane, smiling.

Robbie laughed. "I can't lie to the police, but I don't want to disrespect Charlotte. Let's just say she needed work. But she wasn't arrogant or proud and she never pretended that she was better than she was. She knew she needed work and so she practiced constantly. That's why the coach liked her so much and kept her as the pitcher. She wasn't the best player, but she was probably the most serious. Rich and I helped her has much as we could, not that we were any better. But we practiced with her whenever she wanted us to. We played all the time after school." He looked away, as though the memory was painful. "We… We had a lot of fun in those days. Here, I have a picture."

He stood and retrieved a photo from his bookshelf. Jane hadn't noticed it because it was surrounded by photographs of famous people. Taking the picture, Jane studied it closely. It showed the two identical Dunbar brothers standing on either side of Charlotte Turner. All three of them had their arms around each other. At the age of fifteen they were all roughly the same height, but the boys were clearly just about ready to hit their growth spurt, and Charlotte was starting to develop her womanly curves. Jane felt a pang of sadness. She was so young...

From what Jane could tell, the photograph was taken somewhere near the high school. She recognized the beige stone of the building, but not the courtyard where they were standing. A part of her wanted to ask about the location, but something in her gut made her stop short. As she passed the photograph to Korsak, she made eye contact with him and silently instructed him not to ask any follow up questions about the picture.

Years of partnership served them well, and he understood what she was trying to tell him. The only thing he asked was if Robbie would mind if he snapped a picture of the photograph with his phone, to which Robbie consented.

They spent another hour or so talking with Robbie about Charlotte and about any other friends she might have had who could give them any additional information. He gave them a few names of students, some of whom were familiar to Jane and Korsak, and others who were not. Jane intended to have Frost run checks on all of them.

When they left they each shook Robbie's hand firmly and thanked him for his time and then piled in to the unmarked cruiser. Korsak was driving. "So what did you think of him?" he asked.

"I think he's a nerdy kid with too much money. But I think he loved Charlotte, and he loved his brother too. I feel bad for the guy. He's lost so much," Jane answered.

"I agree. I won't even judge him for filling his condo with the world's most expensive garbage. If it helps him fill the void, more power to him. What did you see in the picture?"

"Maybe nothing, but I couldn't tell where it was taken, could you?"

"No, but why wouldn't you ask Robbie? I bet he knows," he said with a laugh.

Jane shrugged. "I don't know. My gut told me not to. We have the blueprints, we can figure out where it is by ourselves. The less people know about what we're thinking, the better."

"Can't argue with that," said Korsak amiably. It was always a good idea for homicide detectives to play their cards close to their chest.

Jane's phone chimed and she unclipped it. "Frost says: 'Sally did great. Stephanie says the gate where Charlotte was last seen was not the one she usually used to walk home. We're grabbing lunch. Be back soon.'" She squinted at the text, then read again: "_We're grabbing lunch_." She looked over at Korsak. "Do you think he means… like… _lunch_? Or just lunch."

Waggling his eyebrows, Korsak said, "Sounds like _lunch_ to me. Henry, what do you think?"

"Sally likes him," Henry answered at once. "She told me yesterday."

"YES!" yelled Jane, pumping her fists victoriously. "Thank you! Now I have something to throw back at him when he brings up Maura."

As though summoned by Jane speaking her name, Jane's phone chimed again and she looked at the text from Maura. It said, "Could you come down here please? I think we need to talk."

Jane's stomach dropped down in to her boots. She felt lightheaded as all the blood rushed out of her face. Did Maura want to break up already, before they'd even really gotten started? How could this be happening? Had Jane read her all wrong? Maybe she didn't want romance after all. But Jane had been so sure… And after what they'd said to each other the night before…

Never once in the entire time since they'd first kissed did Jane consider the possibility that she and Maura might not spend the rest of their lives together. She remembered telling her mother that it was scary to cross this bridge with Maura because there was so much to lose, but she'd never actually considered the reality of losing it. Maura had seemed so happy, every bit as happy as Jane was. What had she missed? What had she done wrong? Sick fear settled in her stomach.

"Hey, you okay?" Korsak's voice came to her as though she were underwater, and she realized they were parked at the station, and apparently had been for some time because both Korsak and Henry had already gotten out of the car.

"Yeah, sorry," said Jane absently. She climbed out and walked on wobbly legs towards the elevators. What if she didn't go? Would she avoid this horrible fate if she didn't go to Maura's office? _Some detective you are_, she thought bitterly. First she'd missed whatever hints Maura had been dropping, and now she wanted to chicken out and avoid the conversation altogether. Filled with anxiety, she pushed the down arrow and dragged herself on to an elevator.

If she thought seeing Maura would help ease her anxiety, she was wrong. Maura was pacing back and forth in her office, her high heels clacking, her hands shoved in the pockets of her lab coat. Jane knew those mannerisms—she was nervous about something. When Jane knocked on the open door she stopped pacing and looked up. "Jane," she sighed, and Jane's shoulders dropped at her defeated tone.

"Hey. You want me to shut this?" She waved her hand at the door.

"Please. And have a seat."

_Shit_, thought Jane, sitting on Maura's terrible couch.

"Jane, I've been thinking…" Maura paused, took a deep breath, and then said in a rush: "You don't have to refrain from eating meat if you don't want to, not for my sake and not for the sake of humanity as a whole. I've thought about it a lot and I know you were only kidding around, and it's unfair of me to expect you to stick to a dietary restriction that you decided to undertake while we were simply engaging in innocuous banter. I'm very sorry if you felt pressured in to something you weren't actually interested in doing." When she finally stopped speaking, she took another deep breath and looked at Jane beseechingly, as though begging for forgiveness.

Jane sat there blinking. "I… Wh… What?"

Maura came over and perched on the edge of the table and took her hands. "You have been so unerringly sweet and accommodating of all my boundaries and eccentricities, and I worry that I may have overstepped _your _boundaries. And not just with the vegetarianism."

Jane's deep and comprehensive understanding of Maura Isles had already helped her figure out what this conversation was really about, but the trauma of the last ten minutes of her life trumped her desire to comfort Maura through this current unfounded insecurity. She unclipped her phone from her belt, pulled up her text message history, and held it up to Maura's face. "Do you see this text you sent me?"

"Yes," said Maura, confused.

"You see what you wrote?"

"I wrote it, Jane. I know what it says."

"You sent me a text that says: _I think we need to talk_. Do you really not see the problem here?" Then she glared at Maura and waited for her to catch up.

After a few seconds, Maura did. She looked horrified. "Oh my god, Jane, I'm so sorry!"

"Yeah, you should be! I thought you were gonna break up with me, for crying out loud!"

Slowly, Maura's horror transformed in to mirth, and she covered her mouth as she started to laugh.

"It's not funny, Maura. I almost had a damn heart attack."

"It's a little funny," said Maura. She leaned forward and kissed Jane lightly, savoring the fact that she was allowed to do that any time she wanted. "I'm sorry. But you should have known better."

"Yeah, and you should know better than to think you could ever force me to do anything I didn't want to do. You didn't force me to stop eating meat, and you certainly didn't force me to tell you that I love you, especially since we both know you already knew it anyway."

Relief rushed through Maura. She loved it when Jane identified the source of her unrest without Maura having to actually tell her what was wrong. Nobody had ever understood her as well as Jane did. "I knew," she admitted.

"Just like I knew you loved me, too."

"I do love you, Jane. And someday you'll know that well enough to know I would never break up with you."

"You see that? We both have insecurities, but all we have to do is talk about them like rational adults. Funny how that works, right?" said Jane, and she pulled Maura over to sit next to her on the couch, wrapping her arms around her. "But I do have a confession to make."

"What's that?"

"I'm dying for a freaking cheeseburger."

Maura laughed and patted Jane's stomach. "Let's go get you one, then."

They went around the corner to the Dirty Robber, where Jane ordered a big juicy cheeseburger and so, to Jane's amusement, did Maura. "Maura!" she gasped, scandalized. "Who would have thought that such a sweet, innocent face would be responsible for the mass extinction of the human race?"

"For all the good the two of us do in the world, I think we have earned the right to a little indulgence, don't you?"

"I live to indulge. You know that."

"I do. And besides that, the ones who are really responsible are the ones who make it possible for us to indulge. If there was no factory farming of animals, we wouldn't have been able to order our cheeseburgers today. Or if we could, it would be as expensive as the finest lobster dinner."

"Perish the thought," said Jane, turning so her back was against the wall of their booth and putting one foot up on the seat. "I had no idea it was such a big deal. I always thought it was… you know, Hummers and SUVs that were creating the problem."

"Hardly," replied Maura. "In fact, every single person in the entire world could continue to drive whatever vehicle they currently drive, if only the practice of factory farming animals would cease. The abolishment of that one single business would be sufficient to halt our downward spiral towards extinction."

"No way," said Jane, looking at her skeptically. "If that's true, why isn't anyone talking about it?"

"We're talking about it, aren't we? It's become more of a focus of the climate change debate in recent years. What's fascinating is the secrecy surrounding factory farming operations. We largely have no idea what goes on in them. Vigilante climate change activists have gotten arrested trying to sneak on to the premises of the farms to film and other things of that nature, and everything the public has learned so far has been… Nauseating, to say the least."

The waitress brought their burgers and they both sat there staring at them. "Maura, I love how you know everything there is to know about everything, and I love even more the fact that you share that with me, but I'm starving," said Jane. "Please do _not_ elaborate on what you just said."

Maura laughed and they picked up their burgers and tapped them together like glasses of wine before digging in.

As they ate, Jane told Maura about the interview with Robbie Dunbar and Frost's budding romance with Sally Stark. They both agreed it was a good match, and therefore any teasing done would be regulated to, as Maura put it, "positive reinforcement."

Then Maura expressed her frustration at the difficulty she was having figuring out the cause of death for Charlotte Turner. "We've checked every bone for any sign of fractures or splinters or abrasions, we've checked for every poison we can possibly check for in bones, but we haven't found a single thing that could indicate how she died. There are too many ways that someone could kill her that would leave no trace in her skeletal structure or bone marrow. I had Susie request her medical records in case there are any congenital conditions that could help us indicate natural causes, but that wouldn't explain how she ended up under that floor so needless to say, it's a long shot. I'm afraid I may ultimately be forced to rule her cause of death as undetermined. I'm very sorry, but I'm not sure I'll be much help to you this time."

"Oh, that's nonsense. Of course you're helping. You single-handedly restored my morale when I was second-guessing the entire investigation. Plus you made me coffee this morning, and you're funny and cute," said Jane, batting her eyelashes at Maura.

Maura smiled brightly. "Thank you. And you know what? We _did _manage to match the clothing scraps we found to the clothes Charlotte was wearing when she went missing."

Amused at Maura's easy acceptance of her blatant flirtation and adulation, Jane said, "That's right. So we may not know the cause of death, but we know the time of death, more or less. Which is only very slightly less helpful."

When they got back to the station, Frost and Korsak were down in the lobby with Henry and Sally. Sally spotted Maura and her eyes lit up with excitement. "Dr. Isles, it's so nice to see you again. I was hoping I might be able to spend some time with you this afternoon, if you wouldn't mind. It would be great if you could explain what you've done so far in Charlotte's case."

Flattered to be asked, Maura said, "Sure, that would be fine."

"Don't keep her too long, though," said Frost. "The uniforms are bringing in Hopkins soon, and I'm sure Sally would love to sit in on the interview."

"Behind the window though," added Korsak quickly, heading off Sally's eager enthusiasm. "I know you got your first taste of detective work today, but leave the actual suspects to us, alright?"

"Speaking of which, we got some good stuff I want to fill you in on, Jane," said Frost.

"Alright, I'm just going to walk Maura downstairs and then I'll be right up, okay?" And without waiting for an answer, she and Maura headed for the elevators.

"In case you were going to ask, she does _not_ usually walk Dr. Isles downstairs," said Korsak to Sally.

"Thank you, Sergeant Korsak," said Sally pleasantly. "I actually _was_ going to ask."

"Of course you were," laughed Frost, and the four of them headed upstairs.

Jane walked Maura back to her office, leaned down for a quick kiss, and said casually, "See you later. Love you." And then she turned around and left without waiting for a reply, which is how Maura knew that Jane meant it. Real love was when someone did something without expecting anything in return. Maura knew that because she'd been doing it for Jane—and Jane's entire family—for years. Frustrated that Jane hadn't given her a chance to reply, she took out her phone and texted back: "Love you too."

When Jane read the text, she walked in to a doorway. Everyone in the bullpen turned to stare. Embarrassment warred with the desire to saunter in to the room like she was the Chief of Police. After all, what did she have to be embarrassed about? Maura hadn't sent that text to any of these losers. No, she'd sent it to Jane, and _only _Jane. She pushed her hair back and continued on to the bullpen as though nothing had happened, ignoring the fact that Frost was literally crying with laughter.

Twenty minutes later, Sally had gone down to spend time with Maura (Jane was very jealous), and Jane, Frost, Korsak and Henry discussed case business as they waited for the uniforms to bring in Gary Hopkins. Hopkins finally arrived about two hours later—they'd had to wait for him to finish his dialysis treatment. But he'd come peacefully and silently, and he was corporative with the officers even though he didn't volunteer any information. Frost went down to the morgue to collect Sally, and then everyone piled in to the tiny observation room behind the one-way glass to look at Gary Hopkins sitting alone in the stark, barren interview room.

He was clearly not a well man. He was tall, but he still seemed tiny as he sat slumped in the chair. He had grey hair, and his skin seemed to hang off his bones as though he had lost a great deal of weight in a short amount of time. As he sat there he seemed to be drifting in and out of sleep—he was clearly exhausted after his treatment.

Once they felt they were properly prepared, Jane and Korsak entered the interview room and sat opposite him. "Mr. Hopkins, my name is Detective Rizzoli, this is Sergeant Detective Korsak. We'd like to ask you a couple questions about Charlotte Turner."

Gary Hopkins had startlingly blue eyes, and he did not look the least bit sleepy any more. For a long moment he studied them carefully, then he sat back and sighed. "You found that little girl, didn't you? Why else would I be here after all this time? Well, arrest me then. I did it."

This was surely the last thing everyone was expecting. Jane could only imagine the chaos taking place in the observation room behind her. "Excuse me?" she said, her ears ringing.

"You heard me. I killed her, and I buried her under that floor."

Jane and Korsak exchanged glances. "Mr. Hopkins," began Korsak, "can you tell us why you did that?"

"I'd rather not, actually. So go ahead and throw me in a cell. I'm done talking to you folks."

Even though it was the cardinal rule of interrogations not to mention the L word, Jane couldn't in good conscience let this man be thrown in a holding cell without clarifying this. "Mr. Hopkins, are you asking for a lawyer?"

"Did I say that? I don't want no damn lawyer. Lock me up, alright? Case closed, detectives. Well done."

"How did you kill her?" asked Jane, growing irritated.

"The hell does that matter?" he snapped. "I killed her. Why should any of this other bullshit matter?"

"Her family would like to know," said Korsak. "They've waited ten years to find out what happened to her."

"Yeah, well, I guess I'm a cold-blooded killer, then, because that's all you're getting out of me."

Several hours later, Jane was forced to admit that he hadn't been bluffing. They had gotten absolutely nothing else out of the man, and ultimately they had booked him for first degree murder and sent him to a holding cell. The detectives and the podcasters went back to the bullpen to regroup.

"I don't like this," said Korsak. "We brought in a dying old man on circumstantial evidence, not to mention immediately after his dialysis treatment when he's falling asleep in his chair, and we get a confession with no details about the crime he's confessing to. We've got no story, no physical evidence, no cause of death, and no motive. You know what this looks like, right?"

"False confession," said Frost. "I was thinking the same thing. No judge is going to accept this confession."

"If he did it, then why wouldn't he share any details?" asked Sally, who was shivering on her chair. Frost stood and placed his jacket over her shoulders, even though Jane was sure he knew she wasn't shivering because she was cold. She smiled gratefully at him and pulled it tighter around herself, and it seemed to bolster her.

"The way I see it, there are only two reasons. Either he really is a cold-blooded killer, or he doesn't know any details because he didn't do it. The former means he's a dick, and the latter means he's covering for somebody." Jane's phone vibrated and she unclipped it, glanced at the screen, and answered: "Hey Maur, what's up?"

"I have an official cause of death for Charlotte Turner," said Maura with obvious triumph in her voice.

After what had just happened, Jane wasn't sure how she should feel about this information. "Well, we got a confession out of Gary Hopkins, so your timing could be a little better."

"What? Jane, no. I know it's getting late, but I need you all to come down to the ballistics lab. You need to see this. It's important."

Jane was exhausted. Going down to the ballistics lab was the absolute last thing she wanted to do. She had been watching the clock for hours now, anticipating the moment when she would be able to go home to Maura's house. Of course she was well aware that Maura's house wasn't actually her home, but the truth was that home was wherever Maura Isles was. In a feat of mental gymnastics, she convinced herself that since Maura was in the ballistics lab, going down there would be as good as going home. "Alright, we'll be right down." She hung up the phone and said to the others: "Maura's got something. She wants us to go down to the ballistics lab."

As the group headed towards the elevators, Jane indulged in a memory of waking in Maura's bed that morning, remembering how the sunlight had brought out the blonde strands in her hair, and how her body had been so small and warm and soft and perfect against Jane's. Then she remembered the heated kisses they shared the night before, Maura's soft lips familiar now to Jane, but the feeling of her pajama-clad body beneath hers new and exciting. They were taking this as slow as they possibly could, but there was no mistaking the blatant desire in Maura's hazel-brown eyes, or the breathy moan she'd heard against her ear as Jane had trailed her lips down Maura's neck. She could hear it now just as clearly as she'd heard it the night before, and it set her body on fire. No one had ever aroused her as much as Maura did.

The memory completely reversed the progress she'd made with her mental gymnastics. There was absolutely no way she could make out with Maura in the ballistics lab, and _that_ was what Jane had been looking forward to about going home.


	8. S2E6 - The Medical Examiner

**Author's Notes: **Medical doctors and sticks in the mud turn back now—here there be dragons.

I am not a detective, but I do have an armchair interest in detective shit. I like to watch videos of police interrogations on YouTube (shout out to Jim Can't Swim, the best channel on YouTube IMO), and I listen to many a true crime podcast (in case you were wondering, the spiritual inspiration for the podcast in this story is a combination of "Serial" and "Up and Vanished"), so I do know some random stuff about that kind of thing.

The same thing is NOT true about me and science. I don't know anything about anatomy or the human body. The information Maura gives in this chapter is what I like to think of as "plausible nonsense." Please do not leave me any comments about how Maura's stuff in this chapter makes no sense in reality. It _sounds_ like it could make sense, and that's all I care about. I haven't researched everything they do in the television show _R&I_, but I imagine some of that is plausible nonsense as well. All I'm interested in is writing a fanfiction; I'm _not_ interested in spending hours googling medical questions I'd barely even know how to ask, not to mention the amount of time I'd have to spend deciphering the answers I would get.

So please don't let that take away from your enjoyment of the story. It's fiction, people. More than that, it's _fanfiction. _You're going to pop some popcorn, sit your butt down, read the chapter, and you're going to like it, damn it.

Oh, I suppose I should also mention this chapter gets a little spicy.

* * *

_I think I recognized Maura Isles as a kindred spirit from the first time I met her. It's rare to meet someone who doesn't stop herself from blurting out the questions and comments that most people maybe wouldn't say, but I heard Dr. Isles do this on multiple occasions while I was hanging around at BPD. She's also ruthless with the detectives—well, most detectives, anyway. Not _her _detective. _

_Sometimes detectives would come in to the morgue to pressure her for status updates on their victims and evidence, and Dr. Isles would be cool and collected every time. But I also suspect the detectives were somewhat tempered by the knowledge that Jane Rizzoli would kick their ass if they were rude to Dr. Isles._

_I shared that suspicion with Dr. Isles and she agrees, but she added an important clarification. "That isn't new. It's always been like that. Even before we were spotted together in the ladies room, the whole precinct knew that she was my best friend and that they had to be mindful of how they treated me."_

"_And how does that make you feel?"_

"_Protected, obviously. Appreciated."_

"_Stifled?"_

"_You would think that, wouldn't you? But no. Maybe I'd feel differently if she was a man, but I always found it endearing in Jane. The truth is that I've never had a friend like Jane before. In fact I'd never really had a friend at all before her. Anything she does to show me how much she likes me is a gift. It did something else, too. It… inspired me. Knowing that she was prepared to stand up for me made it possible for me to stand up for myself. I suppose that's part of why I love her so much. She took a lot of time and effort to bring me out of my shell so that it became possible for me to have friends."_

"_I have to admit, I find it hard to believe you don't have people lining up to be friends with you, Dr. Isles."_

"_That's kind of you to say. But come and watch me do an autopsy, then maybe you'll understand. I'm very weird, you know."_

"_Hey now, don't insult Detective Rizzoli's girlfriend that way."_

"_Oh, Jane thinks I'm weird, too. She just happens to like it."_

\- An excerpt from _To Charlotte, With Love_ – S2E6: The Medical Examiner

* * *

Maura and Susie were working in silent, practiced tandem to set up their demonstration. Susie was wiring sensors to the rubber dummy that the ballistics lab team affectionately called Robert. The sensors were connected to a laptop where Maura was clacking on keys. Nearby on a gurney sat the carefully laid-out skeleton of Charlotte Turner. Maura was wearing her lab coat and her hair was pulled back in a tidy ponytail, and Jane practically salivated at the sight of her. Then she rolled her eyes at herself and forcefully directed her attention towards the dummy.

Apparently undeterred from her work by the entrance of the large group of people even though it included the woman she loved, Maura launched in to her presentation at once. "So, as Jane may have mentioned, I've been having trouble identifying a cause of death for Miss Turner," she began.

"I would never tell them that," interrupted Jane, feigning offense. "Besides, I don't bother mentioning irrelevant details. I knew you'd figure it out."

"That's very sweet of you to say, thank you Jane," said Maura absently. Frost hid his snickers behind his hand, and Sally's eyes flashed with amusement when she noticed his stifled laughter. "In any case, I was on the verge of declaring her cause of death as undetermined. Following procedure for that, I had Susie request her medical records from all the hospitals she'd ever visited in Pennsylvania. Then we checked with local hospitals here in Boston, and it turns out Charlotte had visited one in this city, so we had those records pulled as well. We received them a few hours ago, and I noticed this." She turned and flicked on a light box hanging on the wall, which lit up the x-rays hanging there. There were two, both of skulls. To Jane they looked identical, but she knew that was unlikely. Though she did have a tendency to over-do the details, Maura had never been prone to redundancy.

Maura pointed to the one on the left and continued: "At the age of fourteen years old, shortly after moving to Boston, Charlotte Turner was involved in a minor car accident. She was sitting in the back seat of the car, her father was driving, and her mother was in the passenger's seat. They were rear-ended. No one involved in the crash was seriously injured, but Charlotte visited the emergency room at Boston General to be treated for minor whiplash, and she was given an x-ray at that time. I'd like to direct your attention to her occipital bone and mastoid process." She used a pointing stick to circle the area in question. It was right near the very base of her skull, right where her spinal cord connected to her head.

"As you know," continued Maura, despite the fact that it was highly unlikely that the detectives and the podcasters would know any of whatever she was about to say, "the upper portion of the human spine is protected by the very construction of the human skull. We have rounded skulls, an evolutionary trait we have developed so that the delicate nerves and tissues of the spine sit in the lee of the outcropping of the skull. In the typical human female, that leaves an average of three centimeters for the semispinalis capitis, the splenius capitis, the suboccipitals, et cetera."

Everyone gave her a blank stare.

"The muscles in the back of the neck that make it so you can hold your head up."

Everyone said: "Oooh."

"They also, to a certain extent, protect your spine. But as you can see," added Maura, "Charlotte Turner's occipital bone is slightly depressed."

"Obviously," said Jane with exaggerated arrogance. "Anyone could see that. Elementary, Dr. Isles." The twinkle of warmth in her eyes made Maura's stomach do a flip.

Maura struggled to regain control over her thoughts and emotions so she could continue her presentation. "It's not flat enough to be a medical concern, but it is enough, under the right circumstances, to have a drastic influence on her body's ability to withstand trauma to the back of her head."

"What caused the depression?" asked Korsak, concentrating hard.

"It's congenital," clarified Maura. "Many people have similar conditions and probably aren't even aware of it. It's not normally a major health concern, and if it is, it's corrected in newborns with orthopedic helmets. Charlotte's case was not severe enough to warrant any treatment at birth, however. Anyway, we ran x-rays on Charlotte's skull as it exists today, and that's what this x-ray here is. And if we overlay them…"

She pulled the other x-ray down and placed it on top of the other. Everyone crowded closer to get a better look. The area where Maura had indicated was ever-so-slightly farther depressed on the newer x-ray than it had been on the old one. If Jane hadn't been specifically looking for it, she wouldn't have noticed it at all.

"Very little growth or change occurs in women's skulls after the age of thirteen or so, so this deepening of the depression could not have been brought about by natural causes."

"What about decay of the skeleton?" asked Jane. "Couldn't the change have occurred while she was lying beneath that floor?"

"Under normal circumstances, yes. But her body was kept in nearly pristine condition. The moisture levels and soil pressure would not have been sufficient to create a change this drastic in her bone structure. Plus, we overlaid the x-rays of the bones of her right arm with the old ones in her medical records, and there was absolutely no change on those. If environmental causes were going to compromise the structural formation of her bones, it would certainly occur in a bone that had been so recently broken and healed, but we didn't see any indication of that.

"I am completely certain that based on the positioning of the depression and the location of the change, a wound like this would be fatal. This is for all intents and purposes the communication hub of the human body, and the pressure from this change would cut off blood flow to several nerves and arteries that are essential to the functioning of the central nervous system. Following an injury like this, death would be nearly instantaneous. I am therefore ruling her cause of death to be blunt force trauma to the back of the head," finished Maura definitively.

"So Gary Hopkins hit her on the back of the head with something," said Frost. "Any idea what?"

"I didn't say that, Barry," said Maura at once. "I've brought you down to the ballistics lab because I need to show you something. Susie?"

Susie, who had thus far been standing off to the side listening attentively to information she already knew, sprang in to action. She picked up a baseball bat that was learning against a wall nearby and handed it to Jane. "Would you hold this please?" Then she went over to Robert the Dummy and pushed down on his shoulders until he was just shorter than her. "This is how tall Charlotte Turner was at the time of her death. We've modified the ballistics testing program to try and help us determine how Charlotte's increased skull depression could have been caused. The simulation will let us know if the force we are imparting is too much or too little. If we get it wrong, we'll get a red light. If we get it right, we should get a green light. Detective Rizzoli, could you please come here and _lightly _tap the back of Robert's skull with the bat?"

Jane walked over, lifted the bat, and daintily tapped the back of Robert's fake skull. A red light blinked repeatedly on Robert's forehead. "What the hell?" asked Jane. "Did I develop super-strength?"

"No," said Maura, laughing. "The problem is your height, Jane. The simulation also accounts for angle of attack, and yours is too high."

Turning to Korsak, Jane said, "How tall is Hopkins?"

"Taller than you," replied Korsak, disappointment evident in his voice.

"So he was lying about killing Charlotte," said Jane. "Why?"

"You never answered my question, Maura. Any idea about the murder weapon?" asked Frost.

"Not yet," said Maura. "But we're working on it. All we know right now is that it was blunt. We've been running the simulation on things we know you could find in a high school first—baseball bats, broom handles, sneakers, et cetera. Nothing so far has worked."

"This is good, though," said Jane, and Maura could tell her brain was already spinning with ideas. "Thanks, Maur."

"You're welcome."

Speaking for the first time, Sally asked, "So what will happen to Gary Hopkins? Are you going to release him?"

"No," replied Korsak. "We didn't get much out of him, but we did get that he knew where the body was hidden the whole time."

"That's right," said Sally with dawning understanding. "He said '_I buried her under that floor_.'"

"Exactly. We'll drop the murder one charges, but at the very least we can we can hold him on obstruction charges, if not for abuse of a corpse or being an accomplice." Korsak gave Jane a pointed look and added: "But I can handle that on my own. You guys should head home for the night, and we can pick this up in the morning." He jerked his head in Maura's direction.

Pathetically grateful, Jane said, "That sounds like a fantastic idea. Maura, what do you think?"

Eagerly, Susie chimed in, "I can finish up here if you want to head home, Dr. Isles."

"Gosh, isn't everyone just so kind and helpful, Maur? Let's not let their sacrifices be in vain, huh?"

Maura gave her an exasperated look, but she ultimately agreed to the plan and thanked everyone for their generosity, and less than twenty minutes later she and Jane were in her Prius headed home. "Sorry for exonerating your best suspect," said Maura, reaching over to take Jane's hand as she drove.

"Don't ever apologize for that," replied Jane. "I'm not interested in locking up the wrong guy, or even the right guy for the wrong thing. All I want is to know the truth."

They stopped for take-out because they were both too exhausted to cook. As they ate Jane filled Maura in on what had happened with Hopkins, even though there wasn't much for her to fill in since the guy had been so infuriatingly tight-lipped. Afterwards they curled up on the couch to watch the Red Sox game. Jane lay on her back with Maura tucked up against her side. From this Maura deduced that Jane was more tired than she was letting on. It was difficult to see the TV from this position, therefore Jane probably was mostly planning to listen rather than watch, presumably because she would have her eyes closed.

Not half an hour later did her breathing even out, letting Maura know that she had drifted off to sleep. Maura was perfectly content to lie there with her until a more suitable bed time, at which point she would wake Jane and have them move to the bedroom. Jane was going to be so adorably grumpy about it, and Maura was very much looking forward to it. _God, I love her so much_, thought Maura, reaching out to lightly trail her fingers over Jane's sleeping face.

The sound of the back door opening made Maura quickly remove her hand and lift her head off Jane's shoulder, and Maura's stomach dropped when Angela walked in. She and Jane were cuddling on the couch in full view of the doorway, and Angela spotted them at once. But she was soothed when Angela just grinned at them, lifted her finger to her lips in a shushing gesture, waved, and walked right back out.

Maura let out a shaky sigh of relief. She didn't know why she'd been nervous in the first place. Jane had already told her that Angela knew how Jane felt about Maura, and the two of them had been planning to have dinner with her that weekend to break the good news. But Maura couldn't help her anxiety—the stakes were high for her. The Rizzolis were more important to her than anything, and the last thing she wanted was for the love she felt for Jane to interfere with the love she felt for Jane's family. Relaxed once again, Maura let herself drift off in Jane's warm embrace.

She was awoken a short time later by soft lips against her own, and she hummed with approval and kissed Jane back. Knowing that Maura was awake and feeling the consent in her reaction, Jane deepened the kiss, and Maura let herself be pushed on to her back as Jane repositioned herself above her. "I thought you were tired," Maura teased, their lips brushing as she spoke.

"Aren't you the one who's always extolling the virtue of 20 minute power naps?" replied Jane, running her hand up Maura's side.

"Mm hmm," affirmed Maura, arching her back to push their bodies closer together. "It's so sexy when you admit that I'm right."

Jane laughed as she kissed Maura again, and then all the levity was sucked from the room when Maura slipped her hands under the back of Jane's shirt, her fingers spreading out over hot skin. "Maur," she gasped. And then they were a tangle again, and Jane ground her hips against Maura's, her knee pressing up between her legs. Maura's hands moved around her ribcage and paused just under the bottom of her bra, and Jane nodded quickly. When Maura's hands slid up over her breasts she practically collapsed on top of her. Her shirt was riding up her midriff as Maura continued to explore her body, and she asked breathlessly, "You want me to take this off?"

Maura was thoroughly enjoying herself, and the question both enflamed and reigned in her desire. She bit her lip and considered Jane above her, asking herself if she felt ready to take the next step—because she knew that if they started this, they wouldn't be able to stop. She didn't want to stop. Truly, she didn't. But another part of her wasn't ready to let go of this moment in their relationship. If she and Jane really were going to be together for the rest of their lives, and she fully intended for that to be the case, then she didn't want to rush these sweet beginnings, these precious last first times.

And perhaps more importantly, she knew Jane was still tired and most likely distracted by the case she was currently working. No matter how much she wanted to make love to Jane, it couldn't be on a night like tonight—a night where it was getting late, and they had worked a long day, and they were exhausted, and they had to be up in the morning. Instead she wanted their first time to be slow, meandering, long, and undistracted. It should be at a time when they could spend as many hours touching each other as they wanted. She almost moaned aloud at the thought of it. She couldn't let herself be deterred by the wonderful feeling of Jane's breasts against her palms. Maura had waited so many years for Jane to be ready for this. She could afford to wait a little while longer so that it could be right. In a maddeningly difficult decision, Maura pulled her hands away, sighed, and said, "No, I suppose not."

"Boo," said Jane as Maura pulled the shirt back down around her midriff, once again hiding that toned stomach. "That was literally the exact opposite of what I wanted to happen. The mistake was asking first. I should have just done it."

"Probably," agreed Maura.

"Would it have worked?"

"You would have been halfway to your second orgasm by now."

"Damn it, Maura!"

Maura laughed. "I'm sorry. But I like that you asked. And I wouldn't have expected anything less. You're too respectful to make so bold a move without asking first."

"Yeah, well, you got any idea when you might be ready to say yes? Because I'm really dying to," she dipped down and put her mouth right beside Maura's ear, letting her voice drop low and throaty, "get you naked and," she moved even closer so her lips were brushing Maura's ear, "lick your face."

Maura burst in to laughter and playfully pushed Jane away with both hands on her chest. "Oh my god, Jane," she cackled. When Jane dropped her head down to laugh against her shoulder, she wrapped her arms around her again and squeezed tightly, overflowing with love for this woman. She'd never been surer about anything before.

They were going to be so happy together.

The next morning Angela walked in on Maura and Jane kissing in the kitchen, but this time she stuck around to chat about it. She assured them she was happy for them, that she had known it was going to happen for years, and officially pressured them about grandchildren for the first time. On the way in to work, Jane said, "We should probably think about that. I mean, you do want kids, right?"

"With you?"

"No, with the Easter Bunny," said Jane sarcastically. "Yeah, with me!"

Maura looked over at her. Jane was driving the Prius with her sunglasses perched on the bridge of her nose, one arm hanging out the open window and the wind blowing her wild hair around, and Maura thought she looked so beautiful that her heart ached. "I love you," she said.

"I love you too, now answer the damn question."

"Yes, I want kids."

"Okay, good. You just made my mother a happy woman. Did you want to carry 'em?"

"I imagine we'll both carry them. Research has shown that infants require frequent physical contact in order to develop the neurological pathways that allow them to grow emotionally, physiologically and intellectually."

"Oh my god, Maur, you're so literal," groaned Jane. "I mean, like, _gestate_ the kid."

"Oh!" said Maura, suddenly understanding. "Oh. No, I don't think so."

"What? Why not? Don't you want our baby to be a little genius like you?"

"No, I want our baby to be exactly like you," replied Maura. "I want it to be a Rizzoli."

Jane almost made a joke about the implication that she was not a genius, but she found she couldn't speak around the lump in her throat.

At the elevators she kissed Maura on the cheek and watched as she got on, still not quite capable of normal speech. Only when the door was closing did she leap in to action, holding out her arm to stop the door and managing to rasp out: "Let's have two. One yours, one mine."

"Both ours," replied Maura, and they smiled at each other until the metal door separated them.

Once everyone was in the bullpen, the detectives and the two reporters picked up their work right where they'd left it the night before, doing what they always did. They went through the case again from the very beginning, this time taking in to account the information that Maura had given them. Not much had changed, except that now they knew the murderer was shorter than Jane, although the crime lab hadn't been able to completely narrow down the actual likely height of the murderer. But the body had been found in Gary Hopkin's office, and he was their only solid suspect, so they had hit another dead end.

They decided to start interviewing the friends of Charlotte's that Robbie had listed for them, and that's what they did for the next two days. But some of them were difficult to find, and the ones they did talk to had nothing to offer them. Jane was growing increasingly frustrated.

It didn't help that the crime lab was under an unusually large workload. Frankie's arsenic murder had turned in to an arsenic triple murder, and the next two victims were kids under the age of ten. Jane was perfectly willing to accept that it was a much higher priority to focus on a case where the murderer was still active and was putting kids at risk. Maura apologized profusely, but as the Chief Medical Examiner she had to follow the hierarchy of necessity. Though not a cop, she was still part of a force that's primary duty was to protect the living. Jane insisted that she understood, and she did, but it didn't make her any less frustrated.

The only thing she could think to do was to take a field trip to the high school and see what she could see. Sometimes all it took was a second look. So she, Frost and Sally headed over to the school. They parked out front but didn't go inside. Instead, they walked to where Charlotte had last been seen and headed in the direction where she would most likely have gone. It was another hot day and Jane left her blazer in the car, but nevertheless she was sweating after only five minutes of exploring. She tied her hair up in to a messy ponytail to keep some of the sweaty strands of hair off her face. Then, as they walked along the perimeter of the school, she noticed something.

Between two bushes, just barely visible, was a pathway. It wasn't an official walkway; it was a desire path, a brown line in the grass trod barren by many feet over the years. It led in to a forested area on the outskirts of the high school grounds. "Wanna get dirty?" Jane asked.

"Do you even need to ask?" replied Frost with a cocky grin. They pushed through the bushes, Frost holding aside as many branches as he could for Sally. "Speaking of dirty, how's things with the doc?"

"Amazing. What can I say? She's the one."

"Great detective work, Jane. I could have told you that years ago."

"I knew it years ago, too, if you want to know the truth."

"Then why is this only happening now?"

Jane shrugged. "I have no idea. Fear? Stupidity? Anyway, it doesn't matter. We were good before and we're good now. None of our time was ever wasted. I think we needed all that time to get used to the idea. I mean, we're two straight women who like each other in a decidedly not-straight way. Maura had an easier time accepting it, but I'm an idiot and I needed to fight it for a while."

"You lost, obviously," observed Frost.

"Maura is not a loss. I won the world series, Frost."

"Aww," said Frost, and he reached out and slapped Jane on the back. "Adorable. I love it when you get all warm and fuzzy."

"You should hear what Dr. Isles sounds like," said Sally. "I'll play you the interview I got the other day. It'll make you cry with cuteness."

"Can I hear?" asked Jane.

"I can't imagine she would have consented to have it on the podcast if she didn't intend for you to hear it," said Sally.

As they talked they moved along the path, and it was clearly leading them back towards the high school. It brought them along a creek and through some wooded areas, a rarity in Boston. Not every part of the path was as easy to discern as the entrance had been, and several times they had to split up to figure out which way to go to bring them back to towards the school. Eventually they emerged on almost the complete opposite end of the high school, standing in front of a courtyard that Jane recognized at once. She took out her phone and pulled up the picture that Korsak had taken of the photograph from Robbie Dunbar, and then held her phone up in the air.

"Look familiar?" she asked.

"It does indeed," said Frost. "Let's check it out."

It was a small courtyard, only about twenty feet long and twenty feet deep. It was tucked away in a part of the building where there were no windows on the wall, so it would be a blind spot for both cameras and eyewitnesses. The only thing remarkable about was that there were two bare patches on the grass, roughly eight feet apart from each other.

As they were looking around, Jane's phone vibrated and she answered it: "Hey Maur, you're on speaker."

"Charlotte Turner was killed with a softball," said Maura without preamble.

"What?" said Jane.

"The curvature and size of the indentation is consistent with the wounds someone would receive if they'd been hit in the back of the head by a softball. But Jane, the only way the physics work out is if the ball was thrown, not actually in someone's hand while they were holding it. And the person who threw it couldn't have thrown it as hard as the average adult would, because otherwise we would have seen fracturing or breakage in the bone. Which means the person who threw it was probably around Charlotte's age, or at least a very short, mal-nourished adult. Whoever threw it wouldn't have been using their full strength. They probably only threw it as hard as they usually threw the softball if their intended target was standing at a distance of about five to ten feet. In other words, it was thrown only as hard as you would throw if you were expecting someone to catch it. Under any other circumstance, this injury probably wouldn't have killed anyone else. But Charlotte had a congenital depression in her skull. Jane… Charlotte Turner wasn't murdered. This was an accident."

Complete silence followed the words for a full thirty seconds. Then Jane turned to Sally and said: "What did I say? One-woman, crime-solving, case-breaking machine."


	9. S2E7 - The Unraveling

_The information we got from Dr. Isles was the break we'd been waiting for, but there was still work to be done after that. And it was done at break-neck speed, in such a flurry that it left my head spinning._

_The work was… euphoric. Detective Rizzoli described it as being like winning a game of chess._

"_It's like when all the pieces are set on the board, this strategy you've been working to build over the entire game. And now you know all you gotta do is make your last three moves. You've won already, but you still gotta make those moves."_

"_Do you play chess, Detective Rizzoli?"_

"_Oh yeah. I'm the only person who can beat Maura."_

"_Wow. That's impressive."_

"_I try to brag about it as much as I can, seeing as she's better than me at pretty much everything else."_

\- An excerpt from _To Charlotte, With Love_ – S2E7: The Unravelling

* * *

"Okay, so what are we thinking?" asked Frost.

Jane and the rest of the crew were back in the bullpen gathered around the case board. She was leaning against her desk, her hand on her chin as she ran through the facts in her mind. "Well," she said, "we've figured out how she got from the star to the X. Charlotte left through the gate but only so that she could go down the path we found. We know she knew about it because of the picture placing her there with the Dunbar twins."

"Robbie told us they used to play softball with Charlotte a lot, presumably exactly where that picture was taken," said Korsak.

Wobbling his head back and forth, Frost said, "Yeah, but the Dunbars had an alibi, remember? They were serving a detention with Barker."

"Let's check with Dunbar," said Jane. "Maybe he knows someone else that Charlotte might have played with back there."

"Alright, so moving on. Jane and Sally and I kept looking around, and we found that if you circle around the building from the courtyard, you get to the truck loading docks," said Frost, and he stood and pointed at the docks on the blueprints. "And right down the hallway from there…"

"The janitor's office," finished Jane. "So she was probably killed in the courtyard, and then at some point her body was brought in to the school via the loading docks and placed under that floor."

"So now the burden on us is to find out how much Hopkins knew," said Korsak. "If he knew that the body was buried there, he definitely knew she was dead, and he probably knows who killed her."

They had Hopkins brought back up for further questioning. In a stroke of pure genius, Korsak had decided not to drop the murder one charges against Hopkins yet, so he was not aware that he was no longer suspected of the killing. Jane went in to the interrogation room alone, intending to use this to her advantage.

"Mr. Hopkins," she said as she sat down at the table. "I hope your night wasn't too uncomfortable. We know you have treatment scheduled, and until we can figure out your accommodations you'll be escorted by some officers to your appointment this morning."

"Thank you," replied Hopkins. He looked frail and sickly in his utilitarian chair.

"I was hoping I could ask you a few more questions. We've gotten some new information from the medical examiner, and we know how Charlotte died. We know she was hit in the back of the head by a softball."

This got Hopkin's attention, and he eyed Jane dubiously.

She gave no outward sign that she had noticed this, instead pretending to focus on the photographs that the CSRU had taken of the courtyard where Charlotte had most likely died. "We have eyewitnesses that say Charlotte had gone to the Softball Spot after school that day, so we're confident that's where she died." This was another lie. Though interviews with current and former students had revealed that many people knew about the courtyard behind the school and that it even had a name, none of them had connected the Softball Spot to Charlotte or placed her there on the day of her death. "It's pretty easy to get there from your old office, isn't it Mr. Hopkins? Did you know about this place?"

"Yes," he answered, his voice hoarse and troubled.

"Have you been there before?"

"I worked there for twenty years. I've been everywhere on those school grounds."

"Mr. Hopkins, you had a pretty good relationship with Charlotte Turner, didn't you?"

"She was one of my favorite students."

"Did you ever help her practice softball, maybe with the Dunbar twins?"

Hopkins glared at her. "I played with Charlotte, but never those two boys."

_Interesting_, thought Jane, knowing that her fellow detectives behind the glass would be thinking the same thing. She knew perfectly well that Hopkins hadn't thrown the ball that had killed Charlotte, but he was intentionally removing the Dunbars from the mix, making it sound like either he only played with Charlotte, or he played with other students, but not Rich and Robbie Dunbar. To clarify, she asked: "Did you ever practice with any students other than Charlotte?"

"Not during the year she was at the school," replied Hopkins with a defiant lift of his chin.

_So he's not specifically protecting the Dunbars, and he's not willing to name any other students who could have done it. He's scummy enough to hide a body for ten years, but not scummy enough to give away whoever actually did it._ Jane considered all this information for a few minutes, making notes in her notebook. Then she moved on.

"Okay, so walk me through this," she said, tapping a photograph of the two bare patches on the ground in the courtyard. "You were playing catch with Charlotte. You distract her, maybe pull the old '_Look over there!_' trick." Jane pointed to the other side of the room behind Hopkins as she said it, but he didn't look away. "And while her back is turned, you drill her as hard as you possibly can with the ball, and she drops like a sack of bricks. Does that all sound about right?"

"No!" burst out Hopkins, and his blue eyes were swimming with tears. "It was an accident. I didn't mean to do it. And then I panicked, okay? I didn't know what to do, so I hid her. But I swear, I didn't mean to kill that little girl!"

_It's important to him that I know that he cared about her. He doesn't want me to think it was intentional. _Jane leaned back in her chair to evaluate him. At length she simply stood and left him sitting there alone, heading in to the observation room to check in with the others. "What do you think?" she asked.

"I think you got about as much out of him as you can with this line of questioning," said Korsak. "He's got his dialysis soon anyway which will take him away from us for about 4 hours. We'll go talk to Robbie again, and when Hopkins comes back we'll reduce his charges so we can tell him what we know."

Everyone agreed to this, and they broke for lunch. Jane went to the café to pick up something to bring to Maura's office. When Angela saw her, she said, "Wait right here. I have something special for you." She disappeared in to the back room, then reappeared with a brown grocery bag, the top folded down so Jane couldn't see what was inside. "Take this to Maura, and don't open it until you get down there, okay?"

Touched, Jane leaned over the counter and kissed her mother on the cheek. "Thanks Ma," she said sincerely. "For everything."

"You're welcome, sweetie."

"And uh, by the way, about that whole grandchildren thing? I wouldn't worry about it, alright? You don't need to pressure us. Just be patient." She winked and left the café, knowing her mother was still standing motionless behind the counter, trying to blink back her tears of joy.

It turned out that the bag contained a lasagna and four of Angela's famous cannolis, plus a card with a heartfelt note about how happy Angela was for them. As Maura sat sniffling over the note, Jane shoveled lasagna in to her mouth like she was dying of starvation. "I love your mother," said Maura, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

"I love her lasagna," replied Jane with her mouth full, and Maura laughed.

After they were finished, Maura wrapped up the leftovers and said, "I'll keep this down here in the fridge, then we can have the rest for dinner."

"No, Maur," groaned Jane. "Not in the dead fridge."

"Would you rather keep it upstairs in _your_ fridge, where it is sure to be discovered by some very astute, curious, and _hungry_ detectives?"

With a pained expression, Jane looked towards the fridge in the morgue, then back to the lasagna, then back to the fridge, then back to the lasagna. Finally she sighed and hung her head. "_Fiiiiiine_. Put it in the dead fridge."

Maura laughed, kissed Jane on the forehead, grabbed the leftovers, and swept from the office towards the morgue. "Good luck with Robbie Dunbar," she said over her shoulder.

Jane, Korsak and Henry went back to visit Dunbar again, meeting him outside his condo as he came home from work early to talk to them. They thanked him again for his generosity with his time and then dug in with their questioning. "Mr. Dunbar," started Jane, "can you tell us about your relationship with Gary Hopkins?"

"Gary?" asked Robbie, surprised. "He's a good guy. Really sick right now, which is very sad."

"So you've kept in contact even after all these years?" asked Korsak.

"Yes. He was sort of like a mentor to me and Richie when we were in school. He's a cool guy. Vietnam vet, former Marine. Before Rich started using he wanted to join the military, so he really looked up to Gary. We used to go to his office for lunch with Charlotte and he would tell us really cool war stories. I know a lot of guys returned with PTSD and stuff like that, but Gary's not like that. He saw some bad stuff, but it never got to him."

Exchanging glances with Korsak, Jane said, "We've got some bad news for you, Mr. Dunbar. I'm sorry to tell you this, but Charlotte Turner is dead. We found her body under the floor of Gary Hopkins's old office in the basement, and unfortunately he's our prime suspect at this time."

All the color drained out of Robbie's face. "No…" he said weakly, and he collapsed back in to his chair. "_Gary_?"

"Does that come as a surprise to you?" asked Korsak, studying him closely.

"Of course," said Robbie distantly, looking as though he might vomit. "I mean… Gary's… He _loved_ Charlotte. He loved her just as much as Rich and I did."

"Well, sometimes love is the motive for a case like this," explained Jane.

Angrily, Robbie said: "Not this time. There's no way Gary could have done this."

"Did you ever see him lose his temper at anybody?" Korsak prodded.

"Never."

This entire line of inquiry was targeted to get them closer to the information they were looking for, and Jane finally began asking the questions they'd actually come here to ask. "How was he with other students? Other than you, your brother and Charlotte."

"He was great," answered Robbie, clearly still distracted, which was exactly what Jane and Korsak had been hoping for. "Everyone loved him."

"Can you remember any other students that might have been close to him, particularly during the year Charlotte was at John Adams High?"

"No, not really… I mean, everyone liked him, but we only started having lunch with him and stuff like that because of Richie. He was so funny and outgoing, and all the staff loved him. So when Gary told him he was a former Marine, that's when Rich took a stronger interest and started dragging us to lunch with him."

"So you didn't want to go to the lunches?" inquired Korsak.

"Not at first, no. But as time went on I grew to love him too. He's great, really. And there's no way he did this, okay? You guys have the wrong guy. Are you even investigating anyone else?" There was urgency and desperation in his voice.

Jane raised an eyebrow. "You got any other ideas about who it could have been?"

This made Robbie pause. He looked away and stared at his _Game of Thrones_ sword, his eyes distant and unseeing. Finally, without looking at them, he said: "Barker."

"The principal?" asked Korsak with genuine surprise.

"Yeah," said Robbie. "Maybe you didn't know this, but… He was a Marine, too. And he served in the same platoon as Gary in Vietnam."

The detectives had not known this. Jane shot a quick glance at Henry, who shrugged at her—he and Sally hadn't known it either.

"I know Barker and Gary were friends until recently," continued Robbie. "Maybe Barker never actually liked him at all. Maybe Barker did… whatever he did to Charlotte, and then buried the body under Gary's office to frame him. He would have had access to the construction schedule, right?"

Jane's gut was telling her that it was an interesting lead, but she was having a hard time seeing the relevance. Barker was even larger than Hopkins. There was no way he had killed Charlotte. And it would throw their time frame off because Barker had been overseeing the detention with Rich and Robbie after school on the day Charlotte had gone missing. Plus there was the fact that Gary Hopkins had always known the location of Charlotte's body, and had likely used his own jackhammer to expedite the hiding of the body. Not wanting to give any of her skepticism away to Robbie, she simply said, "Thanks for the tip. We'll look in to it."

In the car on the way back to the station, Jane called Frost and asked him to run a background check on Barker, and Frost offered to call his father and pull his military records as well. "What do you think?" asked Korsak after she had hung up with Frost.

"I think Dunbar is right that Barker would have known about the construction schedules, at least. It's possible he could have been involved. Henry, did you and Sally bring over everything you got from the construction company?"

"We sure did," replied Henry. "It's at the station in a box on Detective Frost's desk."

"Might be worth taking another look," said Jane. "Maybe there's something we missed there."

By the time they got back to the station Frost had finished the check, and his father had said he would have the records electronically transmitted over within the next hour. Barker didn't have any criminal history, but Frost had found several pictures of him and Gary Hopkins at various school and social functions over the years, and it was clear that the two of them were friends.

As they were looking through these, Korsak filled out and filed the paperwork to drop the first degree murder charge against Hopkins and charged him with obstruction of justice instead. Jane printed one of the pictures of Barker and Hopkins out and took it with her to the interrogation room when the uniforms brought Hopkins back from his dialysis treatment. She went alone in to the room again and sat down across from him. The photographs of the crime scene were still splayed over the tabletop.

"Mr. Hopkins, we're dropping the murder charges against you. But since you confessed that you knew where the body was hidden, we're charging you with obstructing our homicide investigation, and we're holding you for that. Do you understand?" She paused as Hopkins, stunned, nodded an affirmative. Then Jane pulled the picture of Barker and Hopkins out of a folder and laid it over top of the others on the table and asked abruptly: "Can you tell me why you and Chad Barker had a falling out a year ago?"

Just like Robbie Dunbar earlier that day, what little color was left in his face drained away. "I don't see why this is relevant, Detective," he rasped in reply.

"Yeah, well, that's why I'm the detective and you're the suspect. Will you answer the question?"

"I won't comment on my personal life. If this is what you want to talk about, put me back in the cell."

Jane recognized his tone and knew he wasn't bluffing. It would be impossible to get anything else out of him on this subject. They would have to figure out another way. She left the photograph where it lay and went back to the observation room where Korsak and Henry were waiting. "Maybe we should just send him back to holding. We don't have any other questions for him and the guy's exhausted."

The door to the outside hallway opened and Frost poked his head in. "My father sent the military records. Want to come help dig through them?"

"Sure. We're pretty much done here," replied Jane, but she decided to direct the officers outside to have Hopkins kept in the interrogation room just in case. "Bring him a cot though, okay? Tell him he can nap while he waits if he wants. If he's hungry or thirsty, bring him something from the café. He may be a criminal, but he's a dying man. He's not dangerous." She didn't miss the admiring smile the words got from Sally Stark. She supposed that, like Jane, Sally's work must require a certain degree of compassion for all human beings, even criminals. You couldn't tell a story or solve a crime without understanding the subjects of your work, and it was difficult to understand someone without caring about them.

They went back to the bullpen and began to dig in to the files. After about twenty minutes of searching, Sally gave an audible gasp and held up an old photograph. It was of a much younger Barker, Hopkins, and a third man. They were all wearing military-issue khaki cargo pants, they were shirtless, and their dog tags were hanging against their bare chests. They were grinning at the camera, their arms around each other. "I know this guy," she said. "His name is Steve Warner. He's the owner of the construction company that was doing the remodel of John Adams High School. Henry and I met him when we started investigating Hopkins."

"Which would have been about a year ago, right?" said Frost, his eyes lighting up.

"That's what happened," said Jane, catching on quickly. "Barker hired his old military buddy to do the remodel to the school. Then his buddy must have told him that you guys were sniffing around, and he and Hopkins had a fight about it."

"Because Barker must have known that it would look suspicious if someone could prove they were working on the basement around the same time that Charlotte went missing, so he had Warner destroy that portion of the records," added Korsak, nodding.

"If Barker knew that Charlotte had been killed, then that throws the Dunbar twins' alibi out the window," said Jane, getting to her feet. "He was covering for them, and so was Hopkins."


	10. S2E8 - The Truth

**Author's Notes: **You guys still here? Bear with me for one more primarily case-based chapter, because the next one is pretty much sheer M-rated fluff.

* * *

_Does what happened to Charlotte count as a violent crime?_

_And if so, who was the real criminal here?_

_Someone killed Charlotte. Of that, there is no doubt. She was hit with a softball and she died. But that was an accident. That part of the story is forgivable. _

_What happened afterwards is not. _

_If you ask me, the real violence was ten years of uncertainty. The violence was not knowing what had happened to Charlotte. The violence was stealing away peace and stalling the grief._

_The violence was the painful hope that everyone who loved Charlotte felt over the course of ten long, dark years._

\- An excerpt from the finale of _To Charlotte, With Love_ – S2E8: The Truth

* * *

This time when Jane, Korsak, Frost, Sally and Henry arrived at Robbie Dunbar's front door, they didn't call beforehand to let him know they were coming. It was after work hours and they could hear that he was in there, watching some sci fi movie on his big screen. They rang the doorbell, and he stared when he saw them on his front stoop. "Hello, Detectives," he said nervously. "What a surprise to see you again so soon. What can I do for you?"

"Who threw the ball, Robbie? Was it you, or was it Rich?" asked Jane, her serious tone and piercing dark eyes leaving no room for anything but honesty.

Robbie sagged against the doorway as though he was deflating like a balloon. Tears began to roll down his cheeks. "It was me," he whispered.

As the officers were booking him, Jane told him, "We're going to have to go through your house for evidence. It'll be easier on everyone if you can answer us honestly. I don't know how long you'll be away, but your home will still be your home when you get out. We can leave it neat for you or we can tear the place apart so you come home to a mess. So it might be better if you tell me right now: Are we going to find anything in there?"

With red-rimmed eyes, Robbie nodded. "I kept the ball. It's in the closet in my bedroom, hidden in a shoebox on the top shelf. But that's the only thing."

"Thank you, Robbie," said Jane. "I'll make sure CSRU knows to treat the place with respect."

She stood back and watched as the uniforms loaded him in to the back of the cruiser so he could be transported to the station for further questioning. Sally was by her side with her trusty audio recorder. "That was a nice thing you did for him," she said. A tiny smile played on her lips. "Are you going to let me print that, or does it make you look like too much of a softie?"

"You can print it," said Jane affectionately. "This was a strange case. I didn't have to threaten anyone. If your listeners don't think I'm softie by the time they get to this point in the story, they haven't been paying attention."

"Well, I suppose now would be a good time to say thank you for letting us be a part of this. I'm not trying to sound conceited, but if I can stick to my vision and tell this story the way it looks in my head, I think there's a pretty good chance you may have won us another Peabody."

"I won't have won you shit, Sally. You'll win it for yourself. I'm just doing my job." She tapped the badge on her belt.

Over their time together, Jane had come to think of the podcasters' audio equipment like it was their equivalent of her BPD badge. It was a symbol of their status and skillset. Like the badge, the recorder afforded them special abilities and privileges, and Jane had gained a deep respect for the way they handled that fact. They used their journalistic intentions to gain the trust of those they interviewed, and they treated all of their subjects as though they deserved to be heard. Jane wondered how much longer they would stick around now that the case had been solved. She would be sorry to see them go.

Inside the condo, Frost, who had never been here before, was looking at all the autographed head shots that decorated the walls and shelves in complete disbelief. Sally left Jane to join him. "Morgan Freeman? _Steve Buscemi?_" Frost said when he noticed Sally standing next to him, his mouth hanging open. "Are you kidding me?" They moved farther along, and then Frost noticed the glass case with the _Game of Thrones_ sword. "Is that… Is that real?"

"It sure is," confirmed Sally, grinning at him. "Robbie bought it when he toured the set in Coatia while they were filming season seven. That's where they film all the King's Landing scenes. It was used by one of the extras in the Queensgaurd."

"You're telling me this is Lannister gold on the hilt?" replied Frost, staring with wide eyes at the prop sword.

Sally looked delighted. "Are you a _Game of Thrones_ fan, Barry?"

"Who isn't?" replied Frost. "Team Daenerys all the way, baby. How about you?"

"I'm a Jon Snow girl, myself."

Jane and Korsak stood witness to the scene, each looking scandalized. Eventually Jane rolled her eyes and hid the word _nerds_ in a blatantly fake cough before heading upstairs to retrieve the softball.

She found it right where he'd said she would. She took it out of the old shoebox, holding it in the palm of her blue-gloved hand. Steps from the doorway alerted her to the presence of Korsak, and he came and looked at the ball. "What else is in there?" he asked, gesturing at the shoebox. Wordlessly, she handed it to him and they went through it. There were news clippings about Charlotte, and not just her disappearance. There was one from the school newspaper where, as the new girl, they had interviewed her about her interests and hobbies. According to the article Charlotte had wanted to be a journalist, just like her former best friend Sally Stark had eventually become. Also in the box were many photographs of Charlotte, usually with Robbie and Rich. She looked happy, and it was clear the three of them were great friends.

"You know, Korsak," said Jane, studying the pictures, "I think if I had to pick a way to go, playing ball with my friends wouldn't be that bad."

"Yeah, but if one of us ever accidentally killed you while playing ball, it would be traumatic. I don't think anyone ever really gets over something like that."

That was certainly true. "I don't know about you, but I got a hundred questions for Robbie running through my head. Let's go talk to him."

"Good idea," replied Korsak, and they bagged up all the evidence before heading back downstairs. As Jane went, she took out her phone to text Maura and let her know what was going on.

It was already long past the time when Maura would normally have gone home for the night, but the idea of leaving without Jane was unthinkable. When Jane texted that they were bringing in Robbie Dunbar for interrogation, Maura saved her progress on the autopsy report she was working on, packed up her things, and locked her office door as she left. The rest of her night would be spent on the third floor, observing Dunbar's confession from behind the one-way glass. They wouldn't need her in her official capacity as Chief Medical Examiner, but she would definitely be crucial to the success of the investigation in her role as Jane Rizzoli's emotional support.

As soon as Jane saw her step off elevator, she excused herself from the prep work the detectives were doing and went over to wrap Maura in a warm hug. It was late enough that most people had gone home already, but Jane found she didn't give a damn about people seeing them anyway. "Hey," she said, drawing replenishment from having Maura in her arms.

"Hey," replied Maura, wrapping her arms around Jane's waist and laying her head on her chest, content to hug Jane for as long as she needed. "How did it go with Dunbar?"

"He confessed. He's ready to tell us everything."

"Do you trust him to tell the truth?"

"Yeah, I do. He could be trying to pin this on his dead brother, but instead he took ownership of it right away. I think he's been dying to confess for years. Maybe even since it happened."

"I wonder why he didn't."

"So do we," said Jane, finally pulling away from her, dropping a kiss on her forehead as she did. "Let's go find out."

Korsak, Jane and Frost all went in to the interrogation room with Dunbar, with the former two seated at the table and Frost standing near the back with his arms crossed over his chest. Maura, Sally and Henry set themselves up in the observation room, solemn and focused and ready to listen.

"Robbie, why don't you tell us what happened the day Charlotte died?" started Jane, resting her arms on the tabletop and narrowing her focus on Robbie as though they were alone in the room. "Start from the beginning. Did you plan to play softball with Charlotte after school?"

The handcuffs around Robbie's wrists clinked as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Yes," he replied. "We did that a lot. She would go to team practice and Rich and I would wait for her to finish, and then we would meet at the Softball Spot."

"Where did you wait?" asked Korsak.

"Different places on different days. The library, Gary's office, the football field. But most of the time we waited at the Spot, and that's what we did that day."

"Did anyone other than Charlotte know you were there?" Jane asked.

"No. You saw the path, right? It was easy to sneak over there without anyone seeing you. Anyway, we sat on the grass and did homework. While we were sitting there, we saw a bat on the wall of the school."

"A real bat, I'm assuming," said Frost. "Not a baseball bat."

"Right," confirmed Robbie. "It freaked Rich out. I thought it was funny. It flew away, but I kept messing with Rich, saying it had come back, making him look over his shoulder, that kind of thing. When Charlotte showed up, we started playing catch."

Jane pulled out one of the pictures of the Softball Spot. "Who was standing where?" They watched as he pointed out everyone's positions. Rich and Charlotte had each been standing on one of the bald spots in the grass and Robbie had been off to the side, closer to the wooded area behind the school. "Where did the ball come from?" Jane continued.

"She brought it with her from practice. It was a team ball, I guess."

"Okay," said Jane. She glanced over at Frost. "It's a long shot, but we should check with the high school, see if they have any inventory records from that time."

"I'll call tomorrow morning," said Frost.

"Thank you." Jane turned back to Robbie. "Please, continue."

Robbie was getting to the hard part. He cleared his throat. "So we started playing. I was throwing to Charlotte, her to Rich, Rich to me, and so on. None of us were wearing gloves so we weren't throwing all that hard. The sun was behind me, and I could tell it was in Charlotte's eyes because she was squinting and blinking a lot. It must have been about six PM by then and the sun was going down."

Jane noticed that he was offering details unprompted now, maybe hoping to avoid additional interruptions so he could finally get this off his chest. The details also served to further convince Jane that he was giving them the truth because he was coming up with them so quickly and effortlessly, as though he'd played them over in his mind many times. She knew Frost would be making notes on his notepad of all the little details so that they could subject Robbie to repetitive questioning later to see if he reiterated or altered them. If they remained unchanged, they were probably true.

Robbie's voice was bitter and pained as he continued his story: "Then I had the funny idea to mess with Rich some more. I pretended to see the bat again. I tried to warn Charlotte beforehand that I was kidding by winking at her, but I don't think she saw because of the sun in her eyes. So when I pointed, she turned to look too. I was laughing at Rich, and by the time I noticed Charlotte wasn't paying attention, I'd already thrown the ball.

"She… She dropped like a ton of bricks. I'd never seen anything like it before. I hadn't even thrown the ball that hard." He blinked and tears spilled out of his eyes, his voice thick and hard to understand. He was having difficulty speaking and his lungs stuttered as he drew breath, a sign that all three detectives knew meant that the tears were genuine. "One second she was looking for the stupid bat, and the next… she was dead. I could tell she was dead right away. I'd never seen a dead body before, but you can just _tell_, you know?"

In the observation room behind the one-way glass, the atmosphere was heavy and tense. Maura couldn't help herself. "Death would have been instantaneous for Charlotte. He would have been able to discern her complete lack of limbic control as she collapsed," she explained to the podcasters whether they liked it or not. "She probably fell in an unusual position, one that her body would naturally prevent if it were capable of doing so. And he would have instinctually, if not consciously, noticed that she wasn't breathing."

Henry stared at her in horror, but when Maura reached up to surreptitiously wipe away a tear, the horror transformed to compassion. This, he understood, was Dr. Isles's defense mechanism. He and Sally exchanged glances. Maura didn't seem to notice them at all. But when Sally reached over to touch her arm comfortingly, she glanced over at her and smiled sadly.

In the interrogation room, Jane asked softly: "Can you show us where the ball hit her?" And she stood and released him from his handcuffs. He looked at her gratefully, then raised his hand to indicate where on the head he'd hit Charlotte. It was precisely where Maura had shown them on the x-rays. "Thank you. What happened next?" She went to sit back down, leaving Robbie's wrists un-cuffed.

"What happened next?" repeated Robbie incredulously. "The world ended. The earth split apart and ate me starting with my shoes." He went silent for a long moment, and the detectives said nothing, instead waiting patiently for more. They were looking for remorse. They wanted to see if Robbie's statements in this moment of confession were going to be about Charlotte, or about himself. "It was like a nightmare. I'd killed my best friend. She was the friendliest, most beautiful person I'd ever known, and I killed her. It was unreal. I wanted to die right along with her. I wanted to walk straight in to a jail cell and rot there for the rest of my life."

Now Korsak felt it was time to intercede. "You thought about turning yourself in?"

"We ran for help as soon as our legs worked," said Robbie feverishly. "We knew she was… But we ran for help anyway. We were hoping… We wanted her back the minute she was gone."

"Do you have any idea how long you waited?"

"I don't, I'm sorry," said Robbie, shaking his head. "It could have been a minute, it could have been an hour. I was in shock. As soon as I could, I ran."

"Why didn't you call someone on your cell phones?" asked Frost.

"We didn't have cell phones," Robbie replied. "My brother and I grew up in foster care. We didn't have anything. And Charlotte didn't have hers with her. Our only choice was to find help, so we ran to find it."

Jane produced a map of the school and asked him to show which direction he'd run. It turned out he and his brother had run to the truck docks because it was the quickest way in to the school, and they knew there would be adults and phones in the school. She remembered Sally saying Robbie was a genius. It seemed he also kept his head in a crisis. "That was good thinking," she said, her voice sympathetic and complimentary. "It wouldn't have made a lot of sense to run back through those woods."

"It wasn't my idea, it was Richie's." Robbie gave a bitter laugh. "He was the future military man, not me."

The lack of hubris was another good sign to Jane. Her gut was telling her that Robbie was still being truthful.

"So you ran in to the school. Then what happened?" asked Frost. They were now reaching the part of the story that was haziest to them: How Charlotte got from the Softball Spot to the floor in Gary Hopkins's office.

"Then we met Barker," said Robbie simply.

"Where?" prodded Jane, perking up with interest.

"On the ground floor, almost immediately after we got upstairs from the basement."

"And what did you say to him?"

"I told him we were playing softball and I accidentally hit Charlotte."

"Did you tell him she was dead?" asked Korsak.

"No. But we were frantic, so he knew something was really wrong. He ran with us back outside. He saw her and he laid her on her back and he tried to do CPR, but it didn't work."

Frost said, "Did he call 911?"

"No. He did take out his cell phone, but I didn't hear who he called," said Robbie.

"Why not?"

"I was puking my guts out near the forest. I couldn't look at her. I couldn't. I was just waiting there for the cops to arrest me. I couldn't see or hear anything."

"What's the next thing you remember?"

"Barker came over, and he told me and Rich to go home. So we…"

"Wait," said Jane, holding up her hand. "He _told you to go home_?"

"Yes," said Robbie. "He told us to go home, and not to tell anyone about what had happened until he said it was okay. He said he would handle the police."

"Robbie," sighed Jane, shaking her head in disappointment. "You had to know that was bullshit, right?"

"I did," he admitted. "But I was so broken, and I couldn't make sense of anything that was happening. And Rich was so scared for me, he begged me to go along with it. He said he'd kill himself if I went to jail. And eventually Barker called us in to his office after everyone started looking for Charlotte, and he said he'd made it so no one would ever know and we were safe, and he said if either of us said anything, he'd take away our scholarships. I wouldn't have cared, but Richie… Richie loved that school, and he was so bright, and he was all I had. I couldn't do it to him. I couldn't leave him all alone like that. He was my _twin_, you know? He was like the other half of me." Robbie broke in to full, deep sobs. "It killed him anyway, though. He never got over it. He used because he could never forget what I did. I killed him the same way I killed Charlotte."

For a while his sobs were the only sound in the room. The detectives waited until he was marginally calmer. Then Korsak asked: "Did Barker ever tell you what he did with the body?"

"No," answered Robbie. "I begged him to for months, but he wouldn't tell me."

"Did he ever mention that Gary Hopkins was involved?"

"Never."

"Did he ever tell you why he covered this up? Why he covered for you?" asked Frost.

"No. He refused to seriously talk about it ever again after that day in his office. Every time I brought it up, he would threaten to hurt me or Richie and shut the conversation down. I stopped asking after he punched me one day when I was pestering him. He always said the less we knew, the better."

Jane had only one more question for him. "Robbie," she said gently, "why did you keep the ball?"

Robbie looked at her with wretched, bloodshot eyes and answered: "Because, Detective Rizzoli, I don't deserve to forget what I did."


	11. Bonus Content - Love

**Author's Notes: **Here we go. It's the moment you've all been waiting for. An M chapter. Consider yourself warned.

I've never posted anything this explicit before, so I'm pretty nervous. I hope it's not horrible. And if it's horrible, please be gentle with me about it. My ego is very fragile.

I admit I got a little self-indulgent with the romance here, which isn't normally my style. As you may have noticed, my preference is to weave in the romance as part of the bigger story. But not this chapter. So think of it as your reward for sticking around this long.

* * *

_After a lot of soul searching and with permission from Charlotte's mother, I've decided to share the following story with you all._

_One night after a school dance about midway through eighth grade, Charlotte Turner kissed me. It was both of our first kisses._

_I was so shocked. I had no idea what to say or do, because I didn't feel that way about her. I was straight. I did love her, that much I knew. But I couldn't give her what she was asking for, and I was terrified of hurting her._

_While I was sitting there completely dumbfounded, she was jabbering nervously. She said she loved me. She said she had loved me for a long time. And she said she understood if I didn't feel the same way and that if all I wanted was to be friends, we could do that._

_Like a dramatic teenager, I burst in to tears. I apologized over and over for not feeling the same way, and told her how much her friendship meant to me, and how the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her. Charlotte was as good as her word. She completely understood, and even though _I_ was the one turning _her _down, she spent a solid hour hugging me and comforting me._

_I continued to feel bad about it for months afterwards. I would bring it up and ask her if she was okay, and she would smile and reassure me that everything was fine. _

_The last time we talked about it was shortly before she moved, and I asked her yet again if she was hurting because I didn't love her back. I'll never forget what she said to me that day. She laughed and said: "But you _do _love me, Sally!"_

_Finally, I understood why Charlotte really was fine. Yes, she loved me as more than a friend. But that didn't mean she didn't also love me as a friend._

_I often think that Charlotte Turner understood more about love at the age of fourteen than most of us do in our entire lives._

\- An excerpt from _To Charlotte, With Love_ – Bonus Content: Love

* * *

On Saturday afternoon Maura's home was filled with Rizzolis, detectives, and podcasters as they celebrated solving their case. Everyone talked and laughed and ate and drank, and by the end of the party, Sally and Henry had been convinced to call Jane and Maura by their first names.

It was still early when everyone began to leave, and soon Jane and Maura were alone in the house again. There was a ball of warmth in Maura's chest that seemed to glow brightly inside her as she set about the task of cleaning up after the party. She felt lighthearted and alive with the love of her friends, family, and above all, Jane. The two of them worked in silence to clean the house, and it was clear Jane was still mulling the case over in her mind. Maura realized then that she knew exactly what she wanted, and she didn't want to wait anymore. But it couldn't happen with Jane in this mood.

She knew the perfect thing to say to make all thoughts of the case flee Jane's mind.

"If only Robbie hadn't met Barker when he went looking for help," sighed Jane regretfully after several long minutes of companionable silence. "The sentencing guidelines for involuntary manslaughter are light, and he was a minor. He could have served his sentence, been released, and then his record would be expunged when he turned 18. Instead, he lived with this terrible secret for ten years, and it killed his brother."

"It's not very often you see a case where the killer isn't the real bad guy," mused Maura, setting a pile of dishes down in the sink. "There were so many factors that led Robbie to this point, you know? It was really just bad luck, when you think about it. He and his brother were born in to a broken family life, so they had a lot more to lose than most of their peers in a wealthy Beacon Hill high school and were therefore predisposed to manipulation by the staff of said school. Then there's the fact that Charlotte had a congenital condition, so a laughably minor injury let to her tragic death in a freak accident. And afterwards the boys happened to run in to possibly the one person in the entire school who presumably had misguided if not downright nefarious intentions, which only exacerbated an already volatile situation. It was pure misfortune from start to finish for those boys."

Jane smiled and walked over to Maura, wrapping her arms around her loosely. Maura instantly forgot about cleaning and returned the embrace, letting her forearms rest casually on Jane's shoulders. "I'm sorry, but did I just hear the esteemed and respected forensic scientist Dr. Maura Isles chalk this one up to bad luck?"

"You did," replied Maura unabashedly. "You see, I've recently come to believe that there are some things on this earth that can't be reasonably accounted for with logic or science."

"For example?"

"For example…" Maura stood on her toes and placed a soft kiss on Jane's lips. "This," she murmured. "You and me. The simple truth of what we have together, which is founded on something that is so fundamental there can be no explanation for it. It would be like trying to describe the color red."

"Hmm," hummed Jane thoughtfully. "And what fundamental truth is that?"

"We like each other," replied Maura. "That's all. I like you, you like me."

"_We're a happy family_," sang Jane, referencing an annoying song from the children's television program _Barney_ that TJ listened to on repeat.

Maura laughed and sang the next lyrics. "_With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you_..." A pause as she tightened the hug and kissed Jane again. "_Won't you say you like me too?_"

"I like you too, Maura," said Jane obediently.

"Move in with me," said Maura abruptly. This was her plan to make Jane forget the case, and it worked like a charm.

"Wha…" stammered Jane, blinking in shock. "Seriously? Maura, we haven't even slept together yet."

"I want to do that, too. Tonight, preferably."

Head spinning, Jane tried to settle on one thing to say. "I thought you wanted to take it slow."

This was a valid concern, and Maura gave it proper consideration. "I see now that we did take it slow, Jane," she concluded. "We've got seven years of history together, even if we weren't a romantic couple. But we've loved each other for all that time, haven't we? Is the love we share now really all that different? Only now it's growing exponentially by the day. It's like you said—we know this is going to work, because it always _has_ worked. Armed with that knowledge, why should we wait any longer to start our lives together?"

"You're asking the wrong girl. I've been ready for the whole nine yards since the moment I first kissed you," admitted Jane. "I love you more with every day that passes, but at its core it is still the same love I've always felt for you. So I agree that we don't need to go any slower. But what if we sleep together and it's crummy? Will you still want me to move in with you?"

"That's a ridiculous question for two reasons. First of all: Yes, because practice makes perfect. And second of all," she tugged a small part of Jane's shirt out from beneath her pants so she could slip her hand underneath it, "it's not going to be '_crummy_.'"

"I know," breathed Jane, ducking her head until their lips were just barely brushing together. "Yes, I'll move in with you."

A huge smile came over Maura's face, and Jane couldn't help but return it. "You will?"

"Of course I will. I practically live here already. I haven't been home in a week."

"On the contrary," said Maura, feeling like she was going to cry with joy. "You've been home for a week."

"Oh, that's smooth, Maur," laughed Jane. "Real smooth."

For reply, Maura gave squeal of jubilant glee and leapt up in to Jane's arms, trusting completely that Jane would catch her. With deceptively strong arms, Jane did. She held her firmly in place against her body, and Maura wrapped her legs tightly around Jane's waist. "I totally get it now," Maura said against Jane's neck as she began laying passionate, open-mouthed kisses there. "I get why you pick me up."

"Do you get why I'm going to drop you if you keep doing that?" said Jane, breathing heavily from the combination of carrying Maura and what Maura was currently doing to her. She pulled her head back a little, saying, "Wait, Maura. Look at me." Once their gazes were locked, she asked seriously: "Are you sure about this?"

Without hesitation, Maura replied honestly: "Jane, I've never been this certain about anything else."

Swallowing hard, Jane said, "Okay." She began walking with a purpose towards the master bedroom, Maura's legs still securely wrapped around her. She was re-thinking her position on the general sexiness of face licking, because Maura was now running her tongue along her jawline, and it was making her weak in the knees. Then Maura continued on up to her ear, where she drew her sensitive earlobe in to her warm mouth. Jane groaned at the heavenly feeling, and when they got to the bed she gently lowered them both on to it. Maura let her legs slide away from Jane's hips, but she did not remove her arms from where they were wrapped around Jane's neck.

Following along with their downward motion, Jane stopped herself with her palms on either side of Maura's head, taking a moment to hover over her and check Maura's eyes for any lingering uncertainty. She found none, and instead saw only a burning desire and a love so deep she felt momentarily dizzy as she confronted it and embraced it. It felt like she was falling, but she let it happen because she knew that Maura was right there to catch her. "I love you," she said in a dazzling display of understatement and redundancy, because everything in her heart was plainly displayed for Maura to see.

"I love you too," replied Maura, equally unnecessarily.

The kiss Jane gave her then was one of her favorite kinds, the kind where Jane was smiling so much that teeth kept brushing her lips. Maura put both her hands on either side of Jane's face so she could rest her thumbs in the dips of her dimples, and this only made Jane smile wider. Maura wondered if she'd ever love anything more than she loved that smile.

They spent a long time like this, enjoying the building anticipation and taking their time to soak in the uncomplicated pleasure of their bodies pressed together. When anticipation began to evolve in to impatience, Maura slid her hands down and resumed the task she'd left uncompleted earlier of untucking Jane's shirt, thrilling in the way Jane pulled her hips back enough to let her. Then Maura paused and whispered: "Ask again."

Knowing what she meant, Jane smirked and said, "You want me to take this off?"

"Yes," answered Maura eagerly, nearly cutting off the question before it was completed.

Jane straightened up so she was sitting astride Maura's waist and crossed her arms over her body, lifting her shirt up and over her head. It landed on the floor beside the bed, crumpled and forgotten. Maura sat up too and placed reverent kisses on the center of Jane's bare chest, feeling the rapidly pounding heartbeat against her lips from beneath the skin and bone that sheltered it. Maura loved that bone, the manubrium of Jane's sternum, for it protected the precious heart of this woman who, against all logic and science, loved Maura back completely and selflessly.

Though she'd never been with a woman before, Maura found that the taste and feel of Jane's smooth skin was somehow familiar and comforting, but it was also undeniably exciting. She tasted as much of it as she possibly could as she kissed her way downward to the top of Jane's bra, cataloguing the gradual swell and growing fullness of Jane's chest as flatness led steadily and gracefully to rounded breasts. When she got there, she bit down on the fabric of Jane's utilitarian bra and tugged.

"Um," said Jane breathlessly, "what the hell are you doing?"

"Don't you think it would be sexy if I ripped your bra off with my teeth?" replied Maura sweetly, blinking up at Jane with earnest eyes. But Jane could see the hint of mischief that was Maura's biggest tell, and so she knew Maura was joking.

Responding in kind, Jane said, "No, I think it would be annoying if you destroyed my favorite bra."

Leaning back to survey the garment, Maura raised an eyebrow. "_This_ is your favorite bra?"

"Well I only own five and two of them are sports bras, so it's not exactly a steep competition."

Maura looked absolutely scandalized. "_Jane!_ You only own _three_ bras?" She didn't grace the sports bras with a mention because they did _not _count.

"Yeah, so?"

Maura slipped her finger under the garment, right in the center between Jane's breasts. Then she pulled outward towards her own body. "I'm ripping this," she explained casually. "And then we're going shopping."

Jane laughed and kissed Maura as she gently took Maura's wrist and pulled her hand away. Then she reached behind her own back and unhooked the bra herself. It fell in their laps between them, and Jane picked it up and tossed it aside. The temperature in the room shot up a hundred degrees as they crossed another threshold in to their new relationship, because no matter how close they had been before this, Jane had definitely never sat topless in Maura's lap before. But now Jane was willingly showing herself to Maura—her nudity and her scars.

Maura took her in with hungry eyes, and Jane let her. She raked her eyes over the expanse of olive skin, drinking in her perfect breasts with their darkened nipples, and when she finally was able to look away from those she noticed the scars. There was the gunshot wound that had almost stolen Jane away from her, and she reached out to run her fingers over it. It was mostly healed now, hardly even a noticeable difference in texture, but Maura would never be able to forget it was there. She wanted to kiss it, wanted to run her tongue along it and thank it for healing and for letting Jane live. That would come later. For now she had other things to think about. She skimmed her fingers up Jane's stomach to her breasts, hefting them in her hands, teasing the nipples in to points by rolling them between her fingertips, watching Jane's eyes slide closed with pleasure as she did. Jane was perfection, she was exquisite. And she was Maura's.

She became vaguely aware that Jane was unbuttoning her shirt. When she'd finished she met Maura's eyes and asked, "May I?"

"Please," responded Maura, aching to feel Jane's bare skin against her own.

Pushing Maura's shirt off her shoulders, she smiled as she saw the lacy black bra that Maura was wearing. "Really, Maur?"

"What?" replied Maura innocently.

"You planned this."

"I did no such thing."

"Sure you didn't. You just woke up this morning and thought, 'Gosh, today I think I'll wear the frilliest, sexiest bra ever created for no apparent reason, not at all because I'm planning to have sex with Jane Rizzoli tonight, no sir not at all.'"

Disregarding the gentle teasing, Maura wrapped her arms around Jane's neck and dropped back against the pillows, pulling Jane along with her. They both moaned as so much of their skin was pressed together by the motion. Maura kissed Jane, then spoke in to her mouth: "Do you really think it's sexy?"

"Uh huh," was all Jane could manage, bringing her hand up to cup Maura's breast over the frilly bra and squeezing gently. She loved the way it fit perfectly in to her hand, and she loved even more the way she could feel the nipple pressing in to her palm through the fabric. She moved down to bring her head level with Maura's chest, and she dragged her tongue down Maura's soft, overheated skin, loving her whimpers and moans and the way she arched against her. As Maura arched upwards Jane used the opportunity to slip her hands beneath her body, working the clasp on her bra as expertly as if she'd done it a hundred times. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, she used one fingertip to push the straps down Maura's shoulders, taking her sweet time in removing the black fabric from Maura's body. When it was finally gone and tossed away, the sound of it landing on the floor was wildly erotic to Jane, and she abandoned her slowness in favor of taking one of Maura's nipples between her lips.

It was the right decision, judging by Maura's gasp and the way she tangled her hands in to Jane's hair and held on tight, again arching against Jane as though to push herself farther inside her mouth. Jane sucked until the nipple was a tight point inside her mouth, then ran her tongue over it in circles, loving its contrasting hardness against the softness of her tongue. She released the nipple and then kissed her way across to the other, this time teasing with the very tip of her tongue before bringing it inside her mouth as well. She pulled away to look down at Maura again, and then she sighed, "God, Maura, you're so beautiful," as though she couldn't believe just how true that statement was.

Overwhelmed, more aroused than she had ever been, Maura tugged at Jane's hair to bring her back up and kissed her urgently, fiercely, imagining that she could taste what Jane had just said to her in that kiss. This time when their upper bodies came together there were no barriers between them, and Jane groaned in to Maura's mouth when the moisture left over on Maura's nipples rubbed over on to her own.

Maura rolled them so that she was lying on top of Jane, and she separated their bodies just enough to be able to reach down and loosen Jane's belt, the clinking of the buckle serving to heighten her awareness of the significance of the moment. They were lingering on another precipice, another barrier they were poised to shatter. She paused to check in with Jane, who smiled encouragingly at her. It was the type of smile she'd seen Jane direct her way thousands of times over the course of their long, extensive friendship, and she took a moment to soak in the rightness of it all, the sense of finality and certainty that settled over them. This wasn't just anyone that Maura was making love with. It was Jane. And that made it so much better.

"You okay?" asked Jane gently as she tucked a strand of Maura's hair back behind her ear, sensing the subtle shift in Maura's mood.

Maura kissed her lovingly and reassuringly. "Yes. I just love you so very much, Jane. I was taking a second to appreciate that."

"Take as many seconds as you need."

"I'm ready now," Maura assured her, and she resumed her assault on Jane's belt buckle. With that finished, she moved on to the button and the zipper on her pants, and then she crawled down Jane's long body to remove them completely, Jane lifting her hips to assist as she did so. She smiled at Jane's panties, deciding to leave them on for the moment. "They don't match," she teased, glancing pointedly at the discarded bra from earlier.

Unashamed, Jane said, "No, they don't. Are you gonna be okay with that or do we need to stop?"

"It's fine," said Maura at once, returning to Jane's lips for a kiss, desperately stifling all talk of stopping. "But we're definitely going shopping this weekend."

"Don't threaten me," growled Jane playfully, and she flipped them over to work on the clasp of Maura's slacks. When she had them open, she made Maura gasp by slipping her hand inside them and cupping her over her panties, moaning when she felt the wetness seeping through the fabric. "Do yours match?" she whispered, her hot breath caressing Maura's lips.

"Yes," said Maura, rolling her hips to create a delicious friction that she felt like she would surely die without. But when Jane began to retreat she whimpered pathetically, grasping her wrist to hold her in place. "Jane, please," she begged. "Touch me."

Jane had never been able to deny anything Maura asked of her, and this was one request she was only too happy to grant. She drew her hand back only enough to slip under the waistband of Maura's panties before returning it to its place to cup Maura again. "_Maura_," she panted, her heart pounding in her ears. "You're so wet."

"For you, Jane." Maura shifted so her legs were parted, granting Jane even greater access. "Because of you."

Hardly able to breathe, Jane dipped one finger in to where Maura was all moisture and heat, and she felt a rush of corresponding wetness between her own legs at the response she got from Maura. Maura buried her fingers in Jane's hair, holding her so close that her breathing was almost as loud as Jane's own heart pounding in her ears. There was something so sexy about that breathing, knowing that she was the one doing this to the usually cool, collected Maura. Jane knew without a doubt that she had never been wetter than she was right now. She could feel it coating the apex of her thighs.

Jane added a second finger and ran them up and down the length of Maura, finding wetness and warmth everywhere she looked. She mapped Maura out carefully, drawing a picture of her beauty and perfection in her mind. She explored every fold, acquainting herself to this part of Maura without shyness or shame, appeasing her need to know absolutely everything there was to know about the woman she loved more than anything else on this earth. As Jane touched her she held eye contact with Maura, who could barely keep her eyes open through her intense pleasure, but she maintained the connection nonetheless, and her efforts to do so roused in Jane a great swell of love for her.

It was profoundly and almost terrifyingly personal, and Maura felt tears prickle behind her eyes. She'd never had a lover who was so interested in the details of her, but she gave herself over to Jane completely. She willingly let Jane learn all the secrets of her most private areas, comfortable Jane's arms—Jane, who knew her better than anyone on else on this earth and still loved her unconditionally.

When Jane's soaked fingers finally drew slow, tight circles over her clit, Maura cried out and clumsily pulled Jane's mouth to hers, needing to be as close as possible as the storm that had been building within her for _years_ crept ever closer to its breaking point, and when the thunder finally crashed over her in relentless waves it was as though Maura was shattered and then rebuilt, except this version of Maura included a new connection to Jane, shatterproof and permanent.

Jane nursed her back down from the unmatched heights of her climax, raining gentle kisses all over her face and neck and whispering words of love and devotion. There would never be another feeling to match the one that raged within Jane now like a volcano erupting, the feeling of joy and humility and gratitude that she was the one who got to kiss and touch and love this _goddess_, this woman who was so perfect that she could have anyone, but she'd instead chosen to be Jane's partner, her counterpart, her very best friend.

When Maura recovered she kissed Jane and attempted to keep kissing her while shimmying her hips to pull her own slacks and panties off at the same time. Jane laughed and assisted by adeptly using her toes to hook over the clothes and drop them off the edge of the bed. "Didn't even get to see the matching underwear," rasped Jane, her voice weak in the aftermath of her intense emotional high.

"I own dozens of pairs of matching lingerie, and I intend to let you see them all," Maura assured her, now working on Jane's panties. Jane finished this job too, flicking her foot to fling the underwear off the bed. "I'm glad you see the merit in them, though. I hope that means you'll permit me buy you some."

"Uh huh," agreed Jane as she allowed Maura to roll her on to her back, enflamed all over again by the feeling of their now fully naked bodies pressing together. "It's not a gift for me, it's a gift for yourself. I get it."

"That's right, Detective Smarty-pants. Or should I say, Detective Smarty-panties." Jane was still laughing when Maura kissed her, although it melted away in to one of those heart-stopping smiles that filled Maura with giddy love as the kiss progressed. Maura couldn't keep her hands still, and soon she was systematically exploring all the parts of Jane she'd always wanted to touch—that enticing notch at the base of her throat, her magnificent breasts, those sexy, hardened muscles just beneath the skin of her of abdomen, those alluring trenches in her hips that formed a V. She knew the anatomical name for all these places, but for once she found she had no desire to mentally list them. Instead she preferred to think of each part as simply _Jane._

Finally she got to the place that lay at the apex of that V. She waited patiently for permission to touch Jane where she wanted to touch her most, her hand lingering between her legs, already wet from the copious moisture on Jane's inner thighs.

"Yes, Maura," murmured Jane breathlessly against her ear, and Maura continued on.

She loved the way Jane gasped when she finally reached this particular destination. Every place on Jane's body was a destination, but this was different. This was _more_.

Rational thought fled Jane's mind as Maura touched her, and she allowed herself to simply feel Maura against her, with her, surrounding her, and then, inside her. They stared at one another as Maura slid two fingers inside Jane, both thinking that in all their lives they'd never felt closer to anyone before. They were so connected, so intimately connected. They were there together, and it was wonderful. Jane raised her hips to meet Maura as she pressed up inside her, expertly curling her fingers to reach the spot that was sure to send Jane in to outer space. "Oh god, Maura," cried Jane, her mouth falling open in aroused surprise as Maura found her deep inside. "Don't stop."

This very nearly made Maura come on the spot, but there was no denying Jane's demand so she redoubled her focus on Jane's incredible body. Dipping her head down to kiss and nibble at Jane's neck, she used the cues from Jane's rolling hips to establish a rhythm, loving the way Jane continued to pant and moan her name. When she could tell Jane was close from the way her breathing became sharp and fast and high-pitched, she increased her pleasure by pressing her thumb against Jane's clit and rubbing in time with her thrusts.

Jane exploded in an orgasm so powerful that stars blinked before her eyes, and she coated Maura's hand with a rush of renewed wetness. Maura continued her movements, drawing it out as long as she possibly could, until Jane gently squeezed her shoulder and moved her hips away, signaling that it was time to withdraw. Removing her hand, Maura leaned in and sampled the fine droplets of sweat on Jane's forehead, kissing them gently and tasting their saltiness. For a long time she simply listened to Jane attempting to regain control of her breathing, smiling in satisfaction like a cat stretched out in a patch of sunlight. Finally, she kissed Jane's lips, letting her taste the saltiness too, and then she asked: "Crummy?"

Dissolving in to laughter, Jane hugged her tighter and rapidly peppered every bit of skin she could reach with kisses over and over, soaking in the sound of Maura's giggles, loving the way it sounded from this close. "Nope," she said between kisses. "Nope nope nope nope nope."


	12. S2E9 - The Final Scoop

**(Author's notes at the end)**

* * *

_What are we to make of Charlotte's case? What lessons should we take away from it?_

_The most obvious is that life is short, and that you should make the most of every day. Charlotte was taken from this world far too soon. We will never know what greatness she could have done, what joy and love and laughter she could have brought. We can't go through our lives thinking that there are thousands of days beyond the one we are living right now, because sometimes that isn't true. You have to say the things you want to say while they can still be said._

_But I think the more important lesson is about love. _

_Stephanie Turner loves her daughter, and she loves her husband too. After the case was solved Stephanie remarried Charles, because they were finally able to heal their wounds._

_I love Charlotte Turner, and I love Detective Barry Frost, and I love all the friends I made at BPD while I was working on this podcast._

_Detective Rizzoli, or as I now know her, Jane, loves Charlotte Turner even though they never met. She loves her mother, and her brothers, and her nephew, and her co-workers. And most of all, she loves Maura._

_Everything we do, we do because of love. Charlotte played softball with the Dunbar boys because she loved them. Hopkins protected Robbie because he loves him. Jane solves crimes because she loves everyone, although she almost asked me to omit that fact from this podcast._

_So I think that's what's important to remember. We can never forget the lesson Charlotte taught me: That love is love, no matter what form it takes. It's powerful, it's omnipresent, it's life itself. It is what makes us human. It is what makes us alive._

_Thank you, Charlotte. We miss you, and we love you._

_And in that love, you will live on._

\- An excerpt from _To Charlotte, With Love_ – S2E9: The Final Scoop

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The courtroom was packed to the brim with police officers, lawyers, people close to the case, bystanders, and reporters, but it was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. All the spectators sat silent and still as the enormous Chad Barker got to his feet at his table in front of the judge. His head hung and his shoulders slumped as he faced his reckoning.

A warm hand reached over and entwined itself with Jane's, and she looked at Maura sitting beside her and flashed a smile. They both were dressed to the nines for their court appearance, and for what they had planned afterwards. Maura's dress showed only enough cleavage to still be classy and elegant, but Jane felt a rush of arousal at the hint of skin all the same. Six months of sexual intimacy had done nothing to extinguish the fire between them. Jane doubted she'd ever stop wanting Maura the way she did, because it wasn't merely sexual attraction that existed between them. Her attraction to Maura was wrapped up in her love for Maura. The two things were inseparable from one another, and there was no way Jane was ever going to stop loving Maura.

They both had already completed their testimony for this hearing, Maura explaining the science of Charlotte Turner's death, and Jane rehashing the details of the investigation following the discovery of the girl's body. Everyone in the courtroom already knew these details. Season two of _To Charlotte, With Love_ had finished airing a month prior, and the general consensus was that it was the finest example of investigative podcasting that had ever been created. The praise usually centered on both Sally Stark's heartfelt and masterful telling of the story, as well as the colorful cast of characters that Stark had met at the BPD. The podcast's popularity had spread like wildfire, and that was why the courtroom was packed. It wasn't normal to have a routine guilty plea and sentencing hearing be this well-attended, but this case was so high-profile that the court had been forced to stage the hearing in the largest courtroom of the Suffolk County Courthouse.

Also seated in the front row were Sally Stark, Barry Frost, Henry Simon, Vince Korsak, and the newly re-married Stephanie and Charles Turner. Sally's audio equipment was set up on the table right in front of Chad Barker, so for once her hands were free. Though she couldn't see it to be sure, Jane was certain that, much like Maura and herself, Sally was gripping Frost's hand very hard as she listened intently to the proceedings. Sally, too, had already completed her own testimony about the steps she had taken to investigate the case, and how the information she'd uncovered had led her to the conclusion that Charlotte's body was hidden in the school.

Not present was Gary Hopkins, who had died three months prior due to complications with his ESRD. He had been arrested and charged, but aside from a few days in holding at the BPD headquarters, he hadn't been tried, convicted, or served any jail time. Instead he had spent the majority of the last three months of his life in a hospital. No one was particularly upset that he'd never faced his charges, not after he'd poured his heart out to Sally Stark for the podcast about how he had loved the Dunbar twins like they were his own sons, and had only played his part in the hopes of giving them a brighter future. He had also tearfully confessed that Barker had threatened to kill the boys if he said anything or didn't go along with his plans, a story that Barker himself later corroborated.

Also missing from the courtroom was Robbie Dunbar, who was serving the second month of his two-year sentence in federal prison for his very minor charges. He was expected to be released after serving less than a year. During his own plea hearing he had begged for the maximum sentence, but it had not been granted, largely because Stephanie Turner had testified on his behalf to ask for a light sentence. Sally had visited him in prison to interview him for the podcast… And she'd brought Stephanie with her. It was Stephanie's grace and forgiveness that had ultimately allowed Robbie to make peace with what he'd done.

The judge directed Barker to raise his right hand, and she swore him in from her seat on the bench. Once Barker had agreed to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, the Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins began asking routine qualifying questions for the purpose of the public record, confirming his name, birth date, and former profession at the time of Charlotte's death.

"Mr. Barker," the DA asked after all that had been completed, "can you please tell the Court when you first met Rich and Robbie Dunbar?"

"I met them about a month before the school year began in 2009," answered Barker flatly, sounding defeated and tired. "They had been awarded a scholarship to attend John Adams High School even though they were from Southie."

"Who granted them this scholarship?"

"The state. It was part of a state program. We used to get two kids a year from other districts to come attend our school."

"And was it your practice to meet all of those students prior to the start of the school year?"

"It was."

"Mr. Barker, did you ever give the Dunbars any special treatment while they were in attendance of your school?"

"Yes," answered Barker. "I bought them their books with my own money. I brought them lunch sometimes. I let them use the library after hours. I let them visit Gary Hopkins in the basement at lunch even though it was off limits to students."

"Why did you do these things for them, Mr. Barker?"

Barker shrugged. "Because I liked them. They reminded me a lot of myself at that age."

"Let's talk about the day Charlotte Turner died," said Robbins, flipping through a folder that was lying open on the empty jury box. "We'll start with your involvement since we've heard everything that came before. So you were in the school and you were approached by the Dunbar twins. What did they say to you?"

"They said there had been an accident, and that Charlotte needed help. They weren't making a whole lot of sense. They begged me to come, so I went."

"You went with them to see Charlotte. Did you know she was dead?"

"Yes."

"When did you know?"

"Almost immediately. She wasn't laying right."

"And what did you do?"

"I tried to give her CPR, but I fought in 'Nam. I'd seen death. I knew it was too late. So I called my buddy Gary."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want this to screw up the boys' lives, and if I was gonna keep this from getting out, I knew I needed to hide the body so well that it would never be found. And I knew Gary loved the boys, too, and I knew he owned a jackhammer."

"So you asked him for help hiding Charlotte. How soon after her death did you two hide the body?"

"It was within two days. I had my other buddy Steve Warner, who was doing the remodel, change his plans to prioritize Gary's office. But his crew wasn't tearing up any more. They were only laying floors at that point. They'd sent all their deconstruction equipment away already. That's why I needed Gary."

"Exactly how much of the floor did Gary Hopkins tear up with his jackhammer?"

"All of it in that wing," replied Barker. "He worked on it the whole weekend. Then Steve laid the linoleum on Monday."

"Did Steve Warner know why you were asking him to do this?"

"No. When your military buddy asks you to do something, you do it. He's like a brother to me, him and Gary both. Plus I ah… I paid him some money under the table."

"Yes, we know," said Robbins, rifling through the folder again. She produced a copy of a personal check and handed it up to the judge. "This is a copy of a personal check signed by Chad Barker, made out to Steve Warner, in the amount of five thousand dollars. It is dated five days after Charlotte's death. On the memo field he has written the word _floors_."

A shuffle went through the courtroom. Only the people closest to the case had known that Jane and the other detectives had dug up this crucial piece of evidence.

"Mr. Barker, I think what we all really want to know is why you didn't call the authorities that day," continued Rollins. "Why didn't you let Mr. Dunbar confess, even though he _immediately_ and _repeatedly_ told you he wanted to?"

Chad Barker sighed and considered his answer. "I'm from Southie, too, you know," he began at length. "I worked hard to get where I was. I struggled to stay out of trouble so I could graduate high school. We didn't have no state programs back then. I was stuck in a cruddy high school and I had to fight to get out. Then I joined the military, and from there I kept climbing to success until I was the principal of the best school in the city of Boston. But none of it would have been possible if something had knocked me off course right at the beginning. And that's what I didn't want to happen to those Dunbar boys. They were bright, and they had the whole world ahead of 'em. I couldn't see that go to waste over a terrible accident."

A look of triumph came over Rollins's face. "So it is your contention that your motivation was purely altruistic towards the Dunbars, is that right?"

"That's right."

Rollins went back to the folder and fished something out. "Your Honor, I'd like to submit the details of the program which sponsored Rich and Robbie Dunbar's scholarship in to the public record."

"I'll allow it," replied the judge, accepting the papers that Rollins handed her.

Turning to the courtroom, Rollins continued, "In these documents, you can see that the grant program from the commonwealth of Massachusetts specifies that the school that gets these transfer students is awarded a bonus chunk of funds in their annual budget. Isn't that correct, Mr. Barker?"

Looking uncomfortable, Barker said, "I don't recall."

"Well you can trust me. I've read it many times. It says that each student is worth an extra two hundred thousand dollars a year. And it also states that five percent of that money is a direct bonus for the principal of said school. So what that means is that for the privilege of having both Dunbar twins at your school for all four years, you would have earned an extra eighty thousand dollars."

The courtroom erupted in to murmurs again, and the judge banged her gavel for order. "Quiet in the courtroom," she demanded loudly, and the crowed obeyed.

"Hearing this," resumed Rollins as though there had been no interruption, "wouldn't you also find it hard to believe that you hid Charlotte Turner's body simply because you were fond of Rich and Robbie Dunbar?"

Barker had no answer to this, and no one had any doubt as to why.

Jane was filled with revulsion and fury. She couldn't believe anyone could be so callous. It was so against her own nature, she found it absolutely unfathomable. Robbie Dunbar had made an honest mistake, and then he'd been taken advantage of by a greedy, manipulative man. Even Gary Hopkins had fallen victim to Barker, strong-armed in to keeping quiet, a fact that was now being established by the DA at the front of the courtroom. Jane let the rest of the proceedings wash past her without hearing any of it, instead focusing on the warmth and affection coming from Maura beside her, who was lightly stroking the back of her hand with her thumb in silent understanding and solidarity.

After several hours of testimony, the bailiff instructed everyone to rise as the judge retreated to her chambers to consider her sentencing. Jane hoped it wouldn't take very long. As everyone in the courtroom began to move around and break in to chatter, Jane, Maura, and the rest of their crew in the front row found their way to the back few rows where Angela, Frankie, Susie, and Cavanaugh were waiting. It wasn't normal for so many of their friends and coworkers to be here, but everyone had listened to the podcast and wanted to attend. "This is so sad," said Angela, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a tissue. "That poor little girl. And her poor mother and father."

"Don't think of it as sad," said Maura, threading her arm through Angela's comfortingly. "Think of it as healing. It is true that humans have a capacity for terrible and monstrous evil, but we also have a miraculous capacity to heal from considerable trauma. That's what today is about. It's a chance for everyone who loved Charlotte to purge this evil from their system so that they can focus on remembering the girl who means so much to them still, even though she's gone."

Jane's heart fluttered in her chest, filled with the familiar ache of loving Maura so much it was almost painful. "That's right, Ma," said Jane. "That's why me and everyone else at BPD works so hard to resolve these cases, no matter how old they are. You can't say goodbye to someone until you know the truth of why they're gone. It's like a clog in the drain, and you gotta loosen it up so the grief can flow normally."

Still sniffling, Angela nodded. "Yeah, I know. I still think it's sad, though."

Reaching out to pull her in to a one-armed hug, Jane kissed her mother on the forehead. "Me too, Ma," she admitted.

"Listen, everyone," said Maura, and the group looked at her. "After we're done here, don't leave the courthouse, okay? I want to take you all out for dinner. The place is right around the corner. It's a nice day—we can walk there together."

Once everyone had agreed, Jane caught her eye and winked. _Smooth, Maur,_ she thought with admiration. _Real smooth. _It wasn't technically a lie, because they _did _plan to take everyone out for dinner afterwards. But she hadn't known that Maura had chosen a restaurant near the courthouse. This was an effective way to solve the problem of how to keep people from leaving the courthouse after the proceeding was finished, something they'd been struggling to figure out how to do in their planning for this day. The night before, however, Maura had assured Jane that she had a perfect plan, but she'd been in a feisty, playful mood and had refused to share her intentions with Jane. Clearly, Maura was proud of herself about the whole thing. Jane could tell by the smug little grin she got in return to her wink. She draped her arm around Maura's shoulder, tucking her up against her side as the group continued to chat about the case.

When the judge returned, she imposed the maximum sentence on all of Barker's various charges, totaling up to a minimum of twenty years in federal prison. The courtroom was silent as he was led away by four police officers.

Reporters mobbed Jane and Maura as they tried to leave the room, and they each gave cursory statements. But loyalty to Sally Stark kept them from saying anything of substance, and soon the reporters lost interest and moved on.

By the time Maura and Jane got out, the majority of the group was already lingering in the lobby. Now they were only waiting on the two podcasters and Frost. Frost would devotedly remain in the courtroom waiting for Sally to finish with her audio equipment and with the fans and reporters who were star-struck and eager to meet her. And Sally, of course, was too polite and kind to turn them down. After about fifteen minutes, Frost, Sally and Henry appeared and joined the loitering group of BPD family and friends. Maura nudged Jane and nodded her head towards someone else that was lingering nearby, watching Jane with the air of a person who was trying to work up the nerve to talk to her.

Jane broke away from the group with a quick, "I'll be right back," and went to speak with Stephanie Turner. "Mrs. Turner," she greeted her politely, not quite sure what sort of conversation she was about to have with the woman.

"Detective Rizzoli," replied Stephanie. "I'm sorry to bother you when you're clearly in the middle of something."

"I have time for you," said Jane easily. "How can I help you?"

"I… I wanted to say thank you. I listened to the podcast, and I know I was wrong about you." Stephanie looked in to Jane's eyes, as though trying to read the thoughts behind them. "This wasn't just a case for you, was it? This was about Charlotte all along."

"Of course it was," said Jane. "But more importantly, it was about _you_, Mrs. Turner. I know how hard it is to say goodbye to someone you love, and I can imagine how much worse it is when you don't even know what happened to her. That's why we do what we do. We're here to provide the answers you need to help you heal."

Stephanie nodded, swallowing hard and looking down at her shoes. "Well. Thank you for everything you did. It doesn't bring her back, but… It does help. And tell your girlfriend, the medical examiner, tell her I said thank you, too. I know we wouldn't have gotten here without her. So tell her for me, please."

"I will," Jane promised.

"Thank you. Goodbye, Detective."

"Bye."

Jane watched her walk away, feeling the pride of a job well done. And then she wanted nothing more than to share this feeling with Maura. She returned to the group, pulled Maura away, and relayed the conversation in a quiet voice. After she'd finished, Maura stood on her toes in her high heels to kiss her. "We make a good team, you and me," she said confidently.

"We do," agreed Jane. "Care to make that a permanent arrangement?"

"I'd like that very much," replied Maura, a winning smile on her face.

"Let's go, then." They returned to their friends and family. Jane looked at Sally, who had her recorder slung over her shoulder once again. "You got enough tape on that thing to record one last scoop?" she asked.

This surprised Sally, because she'd been certain that this hearing would signify the end of her time following Detective Jane Rizzoli in her official capacity as a reporter. She'd expected that from now on they would simply be friends, and she would therefore have no reason to record Jane anymore. Unable to resist the pull of an honest answer, Sally replied factually through her utter confusion. "It's digital. I could literally record years' worth of scoops if I had to."

"Doesn't need to be years, just needs to be about fifteen minutes," said Jane, amused and strongly reminded of Maura. Addressing the entire group, Jane continued: "Maura and I have a little surprise for you all. If you'd please follow us, it's right down here." She reached over and took Maura's hand, and the two of them led the excitedly chattering group to a smaller courtroom down the hall where the judge from the hearing was waiting at the front. She wasn't sitting on the bench though. She was instead standing behind a small podium at the center of the chamber. "Sorry we're late," said Jane by way of greeting. "We got held up."

"No problem, Detective," said the judge. "Are you ready?"

"We will be in one minute." Then Jane turned to her friends and family, slid her arm around Maura's waist, and announced: "Welcome to our wedding."

"No!" gasped Angela gleefully, putting her hand over her heart and collapsing back against Frankie, who laughed with delight.

"No _freaking _way!" he yelled.

"Jane!" said Frost happily. "Are you serious?"

"Dead serious," replied Jane. "You see, we figured we waited so damn long to get together, we might as well skip the time-consuming nonsense of planning a wedding."

"And you're okay with this?" Frankie asked Maura. "I always figured you to be the type for a frou-frou wedding, not this courthouse type deal."

"The only thing I care about is having all of you here," Maura assured everyone. "And marrying Jane, of course. That's also a fairly high priority for me."

"We're gonna splurge on the honeymoon," Jane added. "Spend all that money we're saving on a trip to Antarctica."

"We're not going to Antarctica," Maura said quickly and somewhat apologetically, as though she'd known all along what Jane was about to say and wanted to assure their friends and family that she was perfectly aware of how ridiculous it sounded. "I don't know why she keeps insisting on that."

"But Maur, it would be so…" Jane paused for dramatic effect before completing the joke, "_cool!_" She cackled when everyone groaned, but her soon-to-be-wife couldn't help laughing right along with her. "Come on, you gotta admit that was a good one, right?"

Shaking her head but still laughing, Maura grabbed Jane's hand and tugged her over to the judge, who was watching them with patient amusement. "Shut up and marry me," Maura demanded.

And with casual ease and genuine affection, Jane replied: "You got it."

THE END

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**Author's Notes: **And there you have it!

This was a fun story to write. I never imagined I would find myself writing a Rizzoli & Isles fic, but I had the idea for the plot and I decided to roll with it. I'm still getting used to being the kind of writer who plots things out before they happen, and the kind of writer who can actually finish a story. I really should be focusing on original works instead of fanfiction, but writing fanfic is fun because of all the feedback you get from readers.

By the way, THANK YOU for your feedback! This story wouldn't exist without you guys. You guys are the difference between me writing tripe garbage until 4 AM, and me writing something I actually think is worth sharing until 4 AM. Either way I'd be writing, but I feel a lot better about the second option, believe me. It really makes me happy to think someone is enjoying the product of my brain waves, the baby I birthed out of my own imagination. It's almost like you're reading my thoughts, isn't it? Pretty fucking cool.

But I digress. Thanks for tagging along with me on this fun little journey. I'm hoping to come up with another R&I story idea, but I make no promises. I might try looking for another fandom instead. We'll see.

Until then, have great lives, readers. I don't know you, but I love you all the same.


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